Sand Hills in Grünau (Translation)
Bei Gruenau (Primary Title)
Sand Hills at Engadine (Former Title)
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, German, 1880 - 1938 (Artist)
Originally titled Sand Hills in Grünau and dated 1913 in Rosy Fischer’s records, this painting was left behind when her son Max fled Nazi Germany in 1935. A series of title changes after it was taken led to the work’s misidentification for seventy years.
Initially, private German collector Kurt Feldäusser retitled it Dunes at Fehmarn in 1938, assuming it portrayed Fehmarn, an island off the northern coast of Germany, which was one of Kirchner’s most popular landscape subjects in 1912 and 1913. After Feldäusser’s death, it was sold in 1949 through a New York gallery to the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1967, a scholar of Kirchner’s work, Donald Gordon, recognized that the painting’s setting was not Fehmarn. He suggested that MoMA change the title to Sand Hills in Engadine and date it 1917–18, thinking that it resembled the landscape Kirchner painted after he moved to Davos, Switzerland, at the end of World War I. When the Fischer family renewed the search for Max’s work in 2004, a MoMA researcher found a postcard picturing the hills near Grünau that almost exactly matches the composition of this painting. This discovery confirmed that it is indeed the painting titled Sand Hills in Grünau that Rosy Fischer recorded on her original list, which led MoMA to return the painting to the Fischer family.
“The Mystic North: Symbolist Landscape Painting in Northern Europe and North America 1890-1940”, Art Gallery of Ontario, January 13 - March 11, 1984; Cincinnati Art Museum, March 31 - May 13, 1984.
“20th Century Masterpieces”, Musée Moderne, Paris, May – June, 1952; Tate Gallery, London, July 15 – August 17, 1952.
[1] Ludwig and Rosy Fischer were art collectors in Frankfurt, Germany, who primarily collected contemporary German art between 1905 and 1925. Ludwig Fischer died on April 25, 1922. In November of 1923, Rosy Fischer founded an art gallery in her home, primarily showing works on paper by second generation German Expressionist artists. The gallery was closed early in the year of 1925.
Rosy died on February 27, 1926, while traveling in North Africa. (See Brandt, Fredrick R. German Expressionist Art: Ludwig and Rosy Fischer Collection, Richmond, Virginia: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 1987, pp. 1 - 11).
The painting was likely in the Fischer collection by 1922 and is included in a 1925 handwritten list by Rosy Fischer, titled: Sandberge im Grünau. See Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, Archiv Grohmann: https://www.staatsgalerie.de/en/g/collection/digital-collection/einzelansicht/sgs/werk/einzelansicht/EAC84DD3DBAA4697B69229D5B8903B96.html
[2] In 1926, the Fischer collection was divided and inherited by Ludwig and Rosy Fischer's sons, Max Fischer (1893-1954) and Ernst Fischer (1896 – 1981). See Brandt, 1987, pp. 1 -11.
The painting is included in a 1931 list as Bei Grünau and owned by Max Fischer. This list was part of correspondence between Galerie Ferdinand Möller and Max Fischer. See Ferdinand Möller Archive at the Berlinsche Galerie, Berlin: http://sammlung-online.berlinischegalerie.de/eMuseumPlus?service=ExternalInterface&module=collection&objectId=211545&viewType=detailView
The work is listed without a value on and is marked “unverk. [aeuflich]” which can mean either “not for sale” or “unsaleable” in German. According to the Museum of Modern Art’s (MOMA) 2015 “Kirchner Restitution Provenance Timeline” which was published on MOMA’s website, Möller returned the painting to Max Fischer in early 1933, a few weeks before the Nazis came to power. This 1933 return to Max Fischer is also cited in Cordula Frowein’s “Liste der Werke aus der Sammlung Fischer” found in Heuberger, Georg, Ed. Expressionismus und Exil: Die Sammlung Ludwig and Rosy Fischer, Frankfurt am Main. München: Prestel, 1990, p. 162, no. 183.
In October of 1935, Max Fischer leaves Germany on a tourist visa to visit his brother Ernst in Richmond, Virginia and does not return to Germany.
[3] Kurt Feldhäusser, a Berlin-based collector of Expressionist art, acquired a painting titled Dünen auf Fehmarn (Dunes at Fehmarn). No records have been found to indicate the source or reason for the painting's title change when it entered Feldhäusser's collection. It is listed in his 1943 inventory list as formerly owned by Max Fischer and as acquired in 1938. Feldhäusser was killed in late-war Allied bombings in Nuremberg in January of 1945.
[4] In 1945, Marie Luise Feldhäusser inherited her son’s collection, including this painting. She would sell much of this collection through E. Weyhe Gallery in New York.
[5] Marie Luise Feldhäusser emigrated to New York and consigned this painting to the E. Weyhe Gallery.
[6] In 1949, MoMA acquires the work titled Dunes at Fehmarn from the Weyhe Gallery in New York (accession number D285.1949). In 1967, the title was changed to Sand Hills in Engadine and given a new date of 1917-18. See also Donald E. Gordon. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1968, p. 339, no. 506 (illus) as Sand Mountains in Engadine and dated 1917-18.
[7] Following years of research, MOMA learned that some of their internal provenance information was incorrect. Due to confusion over titles and dates over the years, it was not immediately clear that this was a work Max Fischer owned before he left Germany. Through research and discovery of an historical postcard of the dunes near Grünau, it was concluded that the painting was of an area outside of Berlin. After determining that a painting titled Sand Hills in Grünau was listed in the original records of Ludwig and Rosy Fischer’s collection, MoMA agreed that it mostly likely belonged to Max Fischer. (See VMFA press release: https://www.vmfa.museum/pressroom/news/german-expressionist-work-is-reunited-with-ludwig-and-rosy-fischer-collection-at-vmfa/)
Although facts around the painting’s transfer to Kurt Feldhäusser in 1938 may never be fully known, MOMA concluded that the context in which the transfer took place made it likely that Fischer did not have full knowledge or choice regarding the transaction or receive its proceeds. Given these circumstances, the Museum of Modern Art and its Board of Trustees decided to restitute the work to the heirs of Max Fischer.
[8] Information in VMFA Curatorial and Registration files.
Some object records are not complete and do not reflect VMFA's full and current knowledge. VMFA makes routine updates as records are reviewed and enhanced.
