The Kunstmuseum Basel will show the painting Tanz im Varieté (Dance at the Varieté, 1911) by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner for the first time.
The significant work was acquired at auction by the Im Obersteg Foundation on June 7, 2024, for approximately seven million euros. Then, across a period of many months, it was thoroughly and painstakingly restored at the Kunstmuseum Basel.
For decades, Tanz im Varieté was considered lost. It was last on view in 1923 in an exhibition in Berlin. After that, it was only known in a black-and-white photograph, until it was put up for auction at Ketterer Kunst in Munich and purchased by the Im Obersteg Foundation. Now it will be presented to the public again for the first time in over a hundred years.
Tanz im Varieté is Kirchner’s homage to the golden age of entertainers before the First World War. The depicted cakewalk emerged during American slavery. In competitions, enslaved people satirized the dances of white slaveowners and the winning couple was awarded a cake. Because Kirchner’s work was considered “degenerate” art under the National Socialist regime, Tanz im Varieté was hidden on a farm during the Second World War. In 1945, French soldiers discovered it. They violently opened the crate containing the painting and damaged its decorative frame. The avant-garde painting evidently made the soldiers furious: a bullet struck the head of the dancer at far left in the picture. The Black dancer’s torso was punctured with a bayonet.
Main Image: Sold, "degenerate", damaged and resurfaced after decades: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner's "Dance in a Variety" (1911) is now on display at the Kunstmuseum Basel.
Anna Melnykova, "Palace of Labor (palats praci), architector I. Pretro, 1916", shot with analog Canon camera, 35 mm Fuji film in March 2022.
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