Alfred Hess (19 May 1879 – 24 December 1931) was a German Jewish industrialist and art collector.
Alfred Hess | |
|---|---|
 Alfred Hess, 1928 | |
| Born | 19 May 1879 |
| Died | 24 December 1931 |
| Nationality | German |
| Known for | Industrialist and art collector |
| Spouse(s) | Thekla Hess, née Pauson |
Career
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Hess was a shoe manufacturer in Erfurt, Thuringia.[1] M & L Hess Schuhfabrik had four factories in Erfurt.[2] He was keen on art and German expressionism. His portrait was made into a woodcut by Max Pechstein in 1919 when he was one of the artists who stayed at the Hess house. Hess made donations to local museums and his visitors' books were so lavishly decorated that illustrations were published as a book in 1957.[3] Hess's factory was forcibly Aryanised under the Nazis.
A memorial plaque for Alfred Hess has been erected at the Hess villa in Alfred-Hess-Straße, Erfurt; the street was named after him in 1992.
Art collection
editWith his wife Thekla (1884–1968), née Pauson, he had an art collection of around 4,000 works that contained important German Expressionist works.
Hess was a philanthropist, donating numerous artworks to museums in Germany. Gifts included the Johannes Driesch (1901 - 1930) drawing, Familie und Liebespaar, and Lionel Feiniger's Viadukt to the Museum für Kunst und Heimatgeschichte in Enfert,[4][5], He also loaned artworks to museums, such as Landungssteg by Lionel Feiniger[6] and Tänzerinnen by Erich Henkel[7]. These and other gifts and loans he made to museums were later seized by the Nazis, as were works from his private collection. Others were sold to finance the escape and survival of his family[8]
Hess' death and the family's fate under the Nazis
editHess died in 1931, before the Nazis came to power. His widow Thekla, who emigrated from Germany to the UK via Switzerland, said that she was forced to sell paintings by the Gestapo.[9] She was forced to deposit paintings with the Cologne Art Association in 1937, and was later told, falsely, that they had been destroyed. She joined her son Hans Hess in the UK in 1939. [10][11]
Hans Hess helped Leicester Museum and Art Gallery create an exhibition of German Expressionist art in 1944. Leicester Museum bought or was given four artworks.[2]
Postwar
editHans Hess was appointed as an art assistant at Leicester shortly before the exhibition opened, then in 1947, he became keeper of art at York Art Gallery. Hans died in 1975 and his widow Lillie in 1976. In 1977 some of the family paintings were auctions at the Marlborough Gallery.[11][12]
Claims for restitution
editThe Hess heirs filed claims for restitution for looted artworks and forced sales.[13] Several works, such as Berlin Street Scene (1913) by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner[14] and Nude by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, have been returned to his granddaughter and heir, Anita Halpin, and subsequently sold; the former sold at auction for £20.5 million to the Neue Galerie New York, which also paid over £1 million to Halpin for Nude.[15] Restitution was opposed by Ludwig von Pufendorf, Wolfgang Henze of the Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Archive in Bern, Switzerland; and Bernd Schultz, managing shareholder of Berlin's Villa Grisebach auction house who stated that they thought that the Hess family sold because of the financial crisis unrelated to any Nazi pressure.[16]
References
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- ^ Jewish Heirs Want Their Art Back. Michael Sontheimer and Andreas Wassermann, Spiegel Online, 8 November 2006. Retrieved 25 July 2017.
- ^ a b "The Story of the Hess Family". www.germanexpressionismleicester.org. 2014-11-06. Retrieved 2017-09-19.
- ^ "Portrait of Alfred Hess". September 2014.
- ^ "Freie Universität Berlin: Beschlagnahmeinventar "Entartete Kunst"". emuseum.campus.fu-berlin.de. Retrieved 2024-11-25.
- ^ "Freie Universität Berlin: Beschlagnahmeinventar "Entartete Kunst"". emuseum.campus.fu-berlin.de. Retrieved 2024-11-25.
unbekannt - 27.08.1937: Erfurt, Museen der Stadt (Museum für Kunst und Heimatgeschichte) Erwerb durch Schenkung von Alfred Hess, Erfurt, Beschlagnahme 27.08.1937 - 06.03.1941: Deutsches Reich / Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda, Berlin Beschlagnahme, Tausch Bemerkungen: Per „Gesetz über Einziehung von Produkten entarteter Kunst" vom 31.05.1938 entschädigungslose Einziehung zugunsten des Deutschen Reiches
- ^ "Freie Universität Berlin: Beschlagnahmeinventar "Entartete Kunst"". emuseum.campus.fu-berlin.de. Retrieved 2024-11-25.
1927 - 1933: Erfurt, Museen der Stadt (Museum für Kunst und Heimatgeschichte) Leihgabe von Alfred Hess, Erfurt 1933 - 27.08.1937: Erfurt, Museen der Stadt (Museum für Kunst und Heimatgeschichte) Leihgabe des Erfurter Kunstvereins, gestiftet am 16.06.1936, RM 200,-, Beschlagnahme 27.08.1937 - 27.10.1939: Deutsches Reich / Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda, Berlin Beschlagnahme, Verkauf Bemerkungen: Per „Gesetz über Einziehung von Produkten entarteter Kunst" vom 31.05.1938 entschädigungslose Einziehung zugunsten des Deutschen Reiches
- ^ "Freie Universität Berlin: Beschlagnahmeinventar "Entartete Kunst"". emuseum.campus.fu-berlin.de. Retrieved 2024-11-25.
1922 - 1932: Erfurt, Museen der Stadt (Museum für Kunst und Heimatgeschichte) Leihgabe von Alfred Hess, Erfurt 1932 - 27.08.1937: Erfurt, Museen der Stadt (Museum für Kunst und Heimatgeschichte) Geschenk von Tekla Hess, Erfurt 27.08.1937 - 13.12.1940: Deutsches Reich / Reichsministerium für Volksaufklärung und Propaganda, Berlin Beschlagnahme, Verkauf
- ^ "German museum seeks funding to purchase looted Kirchner". The Art Newspaper - International art news and events. 2016-03-18. Retrieved 2024-11-25.
- ^ "Family, art experts squabble over returned expressionist masterpiece". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2024-11-25.
Attorneys for the heirs draw on a 1958 declaration by Tekla Hess, Alfred Hess' widow, that she was visited by two Gestapo agents who pressured her to send paintings from Switzerland, where the family had managed to take them, back to Germany. "I had no choice other than to give into the pressure being exerted by this all-powerful agency of the government in the hope that my own life and that of my family would not further be jeopardized," wrote Tekla Hess, who was in Germany at the time.
- ^ "German government steps in with €1.2m to buy looted Kirchner painting". lootedart.com. Retrieved 2024-11-25.
Provenance research showed that the painting was among several that Tekla Hess, Alfred's wife, was forced to store in the Cologne Art Association in 1937. She emigrated to the UK in 1939, joining her son Hans Hess. After the war, the Art Association told her the stored paintings had been destroyed. It later emerged that many of them had been looted from the cellar and resurfaced on the art market—among them The Judgement of Paris, which ended up in the possession of Wilhelm Hack, a Cologne businessman whose art collection led to the foundation of the Ludwigshafen museum.
- ^ a b £100m secret of woman they call 'Stalin's granny'. Evening Standard, 18 November 2016. Retrieved 24 July 2017.
- ^ Communist gets payout for painting stolen by Nazis. David Sanderson, The Times, 30 September 2016. Retrieved 24 July 2017. (subscription required)
- ^ "Kunstsammlung Hess | Lost Art-Datenbank". www.lostart.de. Retrieved 2024-11-25.
- ^ "Kirchner Painting At Heart of Restitution Dispute – DW – 08/19/2006". dw.com. Retrieved 2024-11-25.
- ^ "Neue Galerie Returns Painting Seized by Nazis and Then Rebuys It in Settlement". The New York Times.
- ^ "Family, art experts squabble over returned expressionist masterpiece". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2024-11-25.
Berlin officials say there is no evidence the Hess family ever received payment for Berlin Street Scene, which depicts two brightly dressed women on a crowded street. However, art experts said in a public letter that the painting's fate "had nothing to do with the Nazi persecution of Jewish citizens in 1933-1945" and called for a public review of the decision. They voiced concern that, if it stands, "further unfounded restitution claims will encounter open doors." The letter was signed by Ludwig von Pufendorf, a conservative former Berlin city culture official; Wolfgang Henze of the Ernst Ludwig Kirchner Archive in Bern, Switzerland; and Bernd Schultz, managing shareholder of Berlin's prominent Villa Grisebach auction house.