Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers

Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers (* 1891 in Kiel as Sophie Schneider , † 1978 in Novosibirsk ) was a German art historian , advocate of the avant-garde , author and art collector .

Her first marriage was to Paul Erich Küppers , the first director of the Kestner Society in Hanover, and her second marriage to the Russian painter and architect El Lissitzky . She followed this to the Soviet Union in 1927 . After his death in 1941, she was exiled to Novosibirsk as a hostile foreigner during the Second World War . She lived there until her death in 1978.

Paul Klee: swamp legend, today owned by the Lenbachhaus in Munich

When she emigrated from Germany, she loaned 16 works of art from her collection of modern art to the Provincial Museum in Hanover, 13 of which were confiscated by the National Socialist Art Commission in 1937 during the “ Degenerate Art ” campaign. The location of only four paintings could be determined in the post-war period. The son of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers, Jen Lissitzky, has been seeking restitution since 1989 . He received the works La grappe de raisins by Louis Marcoussis and the city of flies by Paul Klee in 2000 and 2001, respectively, via the painting Improvisation No. 10 by Wassily Kandinsky , he reached an agreement with the new owner. In the case of the picture Swamp legend by Paul Klee, which is owned by the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich, an agreement was reached between the heirs and the city of Munich in July 2017 after a twenty-five year legal dispute.

Life

Sophie was born in 1891 as the daughter of Mathilde and Christian Schneider. Her father was a ship's doctor in the navy in Kiel and came from the Munich publishing house Friedrich Schneider . She was the oldest of four children. In 1900 the family moved from Kiel back to Munich because the father was supposed to look after his sick, rich brother Julius Schneider as a doctor. From 1909 Sophie studied art history at the University of Munich. There she met Paul Erich Küppers, whom she married in 1916 and with whom she moved to Hanover .

Hanover

Paul Küppers became the first director of the Kestnergesellschaft founded on June 10, 1916 . Together, the young couple enlivened the city's cultural life through numerous exhibitions, particularly by young and then unknown artists, such as Kurt Schwitters , art-historical lectures, piano concerts, readings and Dada evenings . During this time, the couple also acquired some sensational works of art from artists who were supported by them, such as the swamp legend by Paul Klee or Improvisation No. 10 by Wassily Kandinsky.

The two sons Kurt and Hans were born in 1917 and 1920. On January 7, 1922, Paul Küppers died of the Spanish flu .

El Lissitzky at the First International Congress of Progressive Artists in Düsseldorf, 1922, with artists from the De Stijl group (on shoulders, with checkered cap)

In the following years, Sophie Küppers continued her commitment to modern art and young artists, especially the Soviet avant-garde found her interest, which earned her the nickname la mère des bolcheviks . She met the Russian painter and architect El Lissitzky through Kurt Schwitters in 1922. She established contacts with the De Stijl artist group and organized international exhibitions, for example the sensational exhibition Mondrian - Paris, Lissitzky - Moscow, Man Ray - New York in 1926 at the Galerie Goltz in Munich .

Moscow

In 1927, Sophie Küppers married El Lissitzky and followed him to Moscow . She sold part of her art collection and gave 16 works on loan to the Hannover Provincial Museum . Due to the uncertain future, she initially left her sons in a boarding school in Gebesee in Thuringia. Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers was accepted into the Moscow circle of artists around the directors Sergej Eisenstein , Wsewolod Meyerhold , the architects Moisei Ginzburg and Wladimir Tatlin , who worked closely with Lissitzky. Stalinism , who came to power, put those artists who were part of the revolutionary awakening under massive pressure. The new government declared abstract art dead and instead of expressionist emotions and constructivist designs demanded an art of socialist realism .

In 1930 Sophie's and El's son Jen Lissitzky was born. A year later the family moved to the then rural Schodnja , 45 kilometers from Moscow, and brought their two children Kurt and Hans from the boarding school. The political situation had worsened to such an extent that, on the one hand, the growing importance of National Socialism in Germany was a threat to the German-Russian couple and the sons of their Jewish father Paul Küppers, and on the other, Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers, as a foreigner in the Soviet Union, was exposed to state repression and she for example no travel permit has been granted within the state.

El Lissitzky had been suffering from tuberculosis since 1921 , from 1935 he became seriously ill, and numerous hospital and sanatorium stays made the living conditions of the family difficult. Kurt Küppers, then 18 years old, left the Soviet Union in 1935 and went to Dresden. In 1938 he was deported to Sachsenhausen concentration camp and released again after an unknown time. He survived the Holocaust .

On December 30, 1941 El Lissitzky died, half a year after the invasion of the German Wehrmacht in the Soviet Union. Hans Küppers graduated as a German teacher in 1941, but he was forbidden to teach Soviet children. He was drafted into the labor service in Moscow and later in the Urals . There he died of unknown cause in July 1942.

Novosibirsk

In 1944, Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers was perpetually exiled as a hostile foreigner ; she was taken to Novosibirsk with her then 14-year-old son Jen. She was finally able to secure her survival as a handicraft teacher in the local culture club. Finally, through her friend Pera Eisenstein, Sergej Eisenstein's wife, she received the news that her son Kurt had survived National Socialism. (He died in Dresden in 1960.)

Three years after Stalin's death, in 1956, the exile was officially lifted. Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers, however, kept her center of life in Siberia. In 1958 she took a trip to Germany and Austria, her son Jen had to stay behind as a "pledge". In Hanover she tried to get information about her art collection, but was told that nothing was known about the whereabouts of the paintings.

In the following years she worked in contact with Erhard Frommhold, the editor of the Dresden Verlag der Kunst on the monograph and compilation of a catalog raisonné by El Lissitzky, which was published in 1968.

In the mid-1970s, Lilo Schultz-Siemens, an employee of the Antonina Gmurzynska gallery in Cologne, visited Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers in Novosibirsk to research works by El Lissitzky, which were in great demand on the Western art market. Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers gave the art dealer at least eleven paintings, which she smuggled out of the Soviet Union via an unknown route. A portion of the sales proceeds should be used to support and finance Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers' return to Germany. From 1975 onwards she submitted seven requests to leave the country, all of which were rejected.

Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers died of pneumonia on December 10, 1978 in Novosibirsk.

In October 2013 it became known that the private estate of El Lissitzky and his wife Sophie was being donated to the Sprengel Museum Hannover by their son Jen Lissitzky .

The collection

Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers' collection of avant-garde and especially cubist works of art came together primarily in the years in Hanover when she was promoting young modern artists; it contained works by Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian , Kurt Schwitters and El Lissitzky , among others . Before emigrating to the Soviet Union, she sold a number of pictures, she gave sixteen on loan to the Provincial Museum in Hanover , three of which El Lissitzky picked up on his last trip to Germany in 1930 and brought them to Moscow. Those that remained were confiscated in the course of the “Degenerate Art” campaign in 1937, some were reviled in the exhibition of the same name, and some were later sold. Nine works have since been considered lost.

List of works of art

The following table lists the 16 works of art that Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers loaned to the Provinzial Museum Hannover in 1926. With the provenance , the further path of the painting is indicated, as far as it is understandable. The Castle Niederschönhausen , mentioned several times, served as a warehouse for a large part of the works after the 1937 confiscation of the "Degenerate Art" campaign. The so-called " fisherman's list " is the confiscation inventory created from 1941 onwards, which lists over 16,000 works of art. The three paintings that El Lissitzky brought to Moscow in 1930 and their further career are also listed.

Artist	plant	Provenance	Note / source
Albert Gleizes	Cubist landscape near Paris painting, 1917	On loan to the Provincial Museum Hannover in 1926, confiscated in 1937, stored in the Schönhausen Castle depot , listed on the fishermen's list , bought by the art dealer Karl Buchholz.	Lost Shown in Paul Küppers: Cubism
George grosz	Bedroom painting	On loan to the Provincial Museum Hanover in 1926, confiscated in 1937.	Missing Issued in the Kestner Society in 1921
Wassily Kandinsky	Two black spots watercolor	On loan to the Provinzial Museum Hannover in 1926, confiscated in 1937, auctioned off to a collector in 1989 by an unknown consignor via the Kunsthaus Lempertz .	Not restituted, today in private ownership in Bergisch Gladbach
Wassily Kandinsky	Improvisation No. 10 oil on canvas, 1910	1926 loan to the Provinzial Museum Hannover, confiscated in 1937, bought in 1939 by the art dealer Ferdinand Möller , sold to Ernst Beyeler in 1951 , passed into the possession of the Fondation Beyeler in Basel.	Restituted in 2002 : the painting remained in the possession of the Fondation Beyeler in exchange for compensation
Paul Klee	House and moon (landscape with the rising full moon) watercolor, 1919	On loan to the Provincial Museum Hanover in 1926, confiscated in 1937.	Lost Shown in Paul Küppers: Cubism
Paul Klee	Flying City (Abandoned Place of an Exotic City) Watercolor	On loan to the Provinzial Museum Hannover in 1926, confiscated in 1937, bought in 1940 from the art dealer Ferdinand Möller, reached Tokyo by an unknown route .	Restituted in 2001 : returned to the heirs inventory book of the Landesmuseum Hannover
Paul Klee	Cubic structure, oil on cardboard, 1920	In 1926 on loan to the Provincial Museum Hannover, in 1930 to Moscow, later to Novosibirsk; Smuggled to Austria in 1958 by Sophie Lissitzky and sold.	Sold: owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art since 1984
Paul Klee	The Comet of Paris watercolor, 1918	On loan to the Provincial Museum Hanover in 1926, brought to Moscow in 1930, stolen in 1944 during deportation to Novosibirsk.	Not restituted, today: Pushkin Museum Moscow
Paul Klee	Marsh legend 1919, oil on cardboard	1926 loan to the Provincial Museum Hannover, confiscated in 1937, reviled in the exhibition “Degenerate Art”, bought in 1941 from the art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt; Acquired by the Gabriele Münter and Johannes Eichner Foundation and the City of Munich after several sales stations.	Restituted in 2017 : the painting remained in the possession of the Lenbachhaus in exchange for compensation .
Fernand Leger	Untitled, watercolor	On loan to the Provincial Museum Hannover in 1926, confiscated in 1937, stored in the Schönhausen Castle depot , listed on the fishermen's list .	Lost
Fernand Leger	Untitled, watercolor	On loan to the Provincial Museum Hannover in 1926, brought to Moscow in 1930.	Lost
El Lissitzky	Proun Black Cross Painting	On loan to the Provincial Museum Hanover in 1926, confiscated in 1937.	Lost
El Lissitzky	Proun SK painting	On loan to the Provincial Museum Hanover in 1926, confiscated in 1937.	Lost
Louis Marcoussis	La grappe de raisins painting	On loan to the Provinzial Museum Hannover in 1926, confiscated in 1937, bought from the art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt, resold to the Cologne collector Josef Haubrich , later moved to the Museum Ludwig .	Restituted in 2000 : returned to the heir
Piet Mondrian	Neoplacticisme (composition Schilderij No. 2 with blue, yellow, black and various light gray and white tones) painting	On loan to the Provinzial Museum Hannover in 1926, confiscated in 1937, later sold by the art dealer Karl Buchholz.	Lost
Karl Schmidt-Rottluff	Landscape watercolor	On loan to the Provincial Museum Hanover in 1926, confiscated in 1937.	Lost. Issued in the Kestner Society in 1920

Restitutions

Jen Lissitzky, the son of Sophie and El Lissitzky, managed to leave the Soviet Union in 1989. In the following years he researched the whereabouts of his mother's art collection. In the case of eleven paintings by El Lissitzky acquired by the Cologne gallery Gmurzynska from Novosibirsk in the mid-1970s, a settlement was reached after a four-year trial in 1993 before the Cologne Higher Regional Court. Jen Lissitzky received DM 300,000. Of the thirteen remaining loans to the Provincial Museum Hanover , he was only able to determine the new owner of four paintings. Dealing with the requested restitution was extremely different.

Improvisation No. 10

• Wassily Kandinsky, Improvisation No. 10 , oil on canvas, 1910

Provenance : Sophie and Paul Küppers acquired this painting on October 15, 1919 in the Berlin gallery Der Sturm for around 3,000 marks. Sophie Küppers loaned it to the Provinzial Museum in 1926. It was confiscated there on July 5, 1937, initially stored in Schönhausen Palace and bought in 1939 for 100 US dollars from the art dealer Ferdinand Möller, who was commissioned with the exploitation. He sold it in 1951 to the Swiss art collector Ernst Beyeler for a price of 28,000 SFR. It is now owned by the Fondation Beyeler in Basel.

Restitution : In 2002, Jen Lissitzky, as his mother's heir, asserts claims for restitution of the picture in a Basel court. Before the court made a decision, the parties reached an agreement, and the heir waived all further claims for an unknown amount of compensation. The painting remained in the possession of the Beyeler Fondation.

• Paul Klee, Fly City (Abandoned Place of an Exotic City) , watercolor, 1921

Provenance : Like the other pictures from the Sophie Küppers collection, this was also confiscated in 1937. In 1940 the art dealer Ferdinand Möller bought it, and the painting ended up in a gallery in Tokyo for years and several sales stations . There the industrialist Masayuki Murata bought the watercolor for the private museum Kiyomizu Sannenzaka in Kyoto in 1997 .

Restitution : After Murata became aware of the provenance of the painting, he returned it to Jen Lissitzky in January 2001 for a symbolic price, the amount of which is unknown.

• Paul Klee, Swamp Legend , oil on cardboard, 1919

Provenance : Sophie and Paul Küppers bought this painting in 1919 directly from Paul Klee's studio in Suresnes Castle , Munich. On July 5, 1937, it was confiscated and from July 19, 1937, it was presented in the humiliating exhibition “Degenerate Art” on the so-called “Dada Wall”. In 1941 the art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt bought the painting from the German Reich for 500 Swiss Francs. In 1962 it was auctioned through the Lempertz auction house in Cologne, despite the reference to the origin and ownership of the painting by Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers, and acquired by the Swiss collector Ernst Beyeler. He then sold it to the Rosengart Gallery in Lucerne, where it was located from 1973 to 1982. Then it was acquired for 700,000 DM by the Gabriele Münter and Johannes Eichner Foundation and the City of Munich, who loaned it to the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus. It is still in their possession today.

Restitution : In 1992 Jen Lissitzky filed a lawsuit for the publication of the picture with the Munich Regional Court. This lawsuit was dismissed with reference to the statute of limitations. Since only the public collections have committed to complying with the Washington Declaration , it is not possible to induce a private foundation to return it according to these principles. Only civil law recourse is possible. From 2013 the dispute was dealt with again by the Munich Regional Court. In July 2017 it became known that the heirs had reached an agreement with the city of Munich. Accordingly, compensation should be paid to the heirs and the painting should remain in the Lenbachhaus.

Louis Marcoussis: La grappe de raisins

• Louis Marcoussis, La grappe de raisins , oil on canvas

Provenance : This painting was also confiscated in the summer of 1937 and brought to Berlin. The art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt bought it there and sold it to the Cologne collector Josef Haubrich during the war. He donated it to the city of Cologne and handed it over to the Museum Ludwig.

Restitution : In 1992 the heir Jen Lissitzky asked for the painting to be returned. The matter was considered for eight years. In February 2000 those responsible decided the restitution according to the Washington principles.

literature

• Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers: EL Lissitzky. Painter, architect, typographer, photographer - memories, letters, writings . Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1968.
• Melissa Müller : Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers (1891–1978) Hanover / Munich . In: Melissa Müller, Monika Tatzkow: Lost Pictures, Lost Lives. Jewish collectors and what became of their works of art. Elisabeth Sandmann Verlag, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-938045-30-5 , p. 98 ff.
• Ingeborg Prior: The stolen pictures. The adventurous story of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers and her art collection . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2002, ISBN 3-462-03084-1 .
• Hugo Thielen : KÜPPERS, (2) Sophie. In: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon ', p. 216; online through google books
• Hugo Thielen: Lissitzky-Küppers. In: Klaus Mlynek, Waldemar R. Röhrbein (eds.) U. a .: City Lexicon Hanover . From the beginning to the present. Schlütersche, Hannover 2009, ISBN 978-3-89993-662-9 , p. 411.

Web links

• Literature by and about Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers in the catalog of the German National Library
• Lissitzky-Küppers, Sophie Artworks in the Lost Art database

Individual evidence

1. ^ Ingeborg Prior: The stolen pictures. The adventurous story of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers and her art collection , Cologne 2002.
2. ^ Homepage of Galerie Goltz , accessed on December 20, 2009.
3. ^ Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers: EL Lissitzky. Painter, architect, typographer, photographer - memories, letters, writings , Verlag der Kunst, Dresden 1968.
4. ↑ Hanover receives an estate from El Lissitzky , Weser-Kurier of October 12, 2013
5. ^ Research center "Degenerate Art": Confiscation inventory ( Memento of the original from June 29, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 20, 2009. 
6. ^ Paul Erich Küppers: Cubism - an artistic form problem of our time , Leipzig 1920, list of figures p. 13 [1] accessed on December 20, 2009; see also: Ingeborg Prior: The robbed pictures. The adventurous story of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers and her art collection , Cologne 2002, p. 268.
7. ^ Ingeborg Prior: The stolen pictures. The adventurous story of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers and her art collection , Cologne 2002, p. 262 f.
8. ↑ Melissa Müller, Monika Tatzkow: Lost Pictures, Lost Lives. Jewish collectors and what became of their works of art, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-938045-30-5 , p. 109 u. 113; Sprengel Museum Hannover: 1937. In search of traces - In memory of the “Degenerate Art” campaign , Hannover 2007, p. 63.
9. ↑ Gunnar Schnabel, Monika Tatzkow: Nazi Looted Art. Manual. Art restitution worldwide, Berlin 2007, p. 297.
10. ^ Paul Erich Küppers: Cubism - an artistic form problem of our time , Leipzig 1920, list of figures p. 31 [2] accessed on December 20, 2009; see also: Ingeborg Prior: The robbed pictures. The adventurous story of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers and her art collection , Cologne 2002, p. 284.
11. ↑ Sprengel Museum Hannover: 1937. In search of traces - In memory of the “Degenerate Art” campaign , Hannover 2007, p. 63; see also: Ingeborg Prior: The robbed pictures. The adventurous story of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers and her art collection , Cologne 2002, p. 281.
12. ^ Ingeborg Prior: The stolen pictures. The adventurous story of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers and her art collection , Cologne 2002, p. 189.
13. ^ Ingeborg Prior: The stolen pictures. The adventurous story of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers and her art collection , Cologne 2002, pp. 103 and 154.
14. ^ Settlement in the dispute over Klee-Bild "Sumpflegende" , Deutschlandfunk from July 26, 2017
15. ^ Ingeborg Prior: The stolen pictures. The adventurous story of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers and her art collection , Cologne 2002, p. 264 f.
16. ^ Ingeborg Prior: The stolen pictures. The adventurous story of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers and her art collection , Cologne 2002, p. 103.
17. ^ Ingeborg Prior: The stolen pictures. The adventurous story of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers and her art collection , Cologne 2002, p. 284.
18. ^ Ingeborg Prior: The stolen pictures. The adventurous story of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers and her art collection , Cologne 2002, p. 284.
19. ^ Coordination Office for the Loss of Cultural Property Magdeburg (ed.): Contributions by public institutions in the Federal Republic of Germany on dealing with cultural property from former Jewish property, Magdeburg 2001 (publications 1), p. 179 ff.
20. ↑ Sprengel Museum Hannover: 1937. In search of traces - In memory of the “Degenerate Art” campaign , Hannover 2007., p. 19; Ingeborg Prior: The stolen pictures. The adventurous story of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers and her art collection , Cologne 2002, p. 267.
21. ^ Ingeborg Prior: The stolen pictures. The adventurous story of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers and her art collection , Cologne 2002, p. 284.
22. ^ Ingeborg Prior: The stolen pictures. The adventurous story of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers and her art collection , Cologne 2002, p. 243 ff.
23. ↑ Gunnar Schnabel, Monika Tatzkow: Nazi Looted Art. Manual. Art restitution worldwide, Berlin 2007, p. 297 ff.
24. ^ Ingeborg Prior: The stolen pictures. The adventurous story of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers and her art collection , Cologne 2002, p. 281.
25. ↑ Gunnar Schnabel, Monika Tatzkow: Nazi Looted Art. Manual. Art restitution worldwide, Berlin 2007, p. 289 ff.
26. ^ Restitution dispute: Klee's "Swamp legend". Steps in the right direction , Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of May 6, 2013 , accessed on March 29, 2015
27. ^ Settlement in the dispute over Klee-Bild "Sumpflegende" , Deutschlandfunk from July 26, 2017
28. ^ Coordination Office for the Loss of Cultural Property Magdeburg (ed.): Contributions by public institutions in the Federal Republic of Germany on dealing with cultural property from former Jewish property, Magdeburg 2001 (publications 1), p. 179 ff.