Provenance Research

In 1912, the trained bookseller Ferdinand Möller (1882–1956) switched from publishing to the art trade. That same year he married the painter Maria Möller-Garny (1886–1971). The couple had three daughters: Susanne Wenzel-Möller (1913–2003), Rosemarie Baumgart-Möller (1915–2000), and Angelika Fessler-Möller (1919–2002). When 17,000 avant-gardist artworks were confiscated from German public collections as part of the Nazi “degenerate art” campaign in 1937, Ferdinand Möller was one of the four art dealers who were authorized to “commercialize” them. Möller acquired more than 800 works of art by purchase for U.S. currency or in exchange for conformist art.

In 2016, with support from the Swiss Federal Office of Culture, systematic provenance research was conducted for the first time at the Kirchner Museum Davos.  Works from the Baumgart-Möller donation had priority in this research, as they could be assumed to have a higher likelihood of being linked to the confiscation and “commercialization” of works from private collections and museum holdings during the Nazi dictatorship in Germany in 1933–45.

Research has shown that most of the works passed from Ferdinand Möller’s activities as an art dealer in the period from 1912 until 1956 into family ownership and only few works were acquired after his death. For 16 works, the provenance is fully clarified and unobjectionable. For 21 works, the provenance information for the period from 1933 until 1945 remains incomplete, but there is no evidence suggesting they could be looted art. For one work, the possibility of it being Nazi-looted art cannot be ruled out with certainty and its provenance is being further researched.