The painting “Erich Heckel and Otto Mueller playing chess” by expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) from 1913 remains permanently in the Berlin Brücke Museum after provenance has been clarified.
It was announced on Tuesday that a fair and just solution has been found with the heirs of the Jewish previous owner Victor Wallerstein in accordance with the Washington Principles regarding cultural property confiscated due to Nazi persecution.
The Cultural Foundation is supporting the purchase with a six-figure amount. The Foundation's Secretary General, Markus Hilgert, called the Kirchner painting a work of national cultural significance. The Brücke Museum is the ideal place to show the picture in its art-historical, regional and provenance context. The expressionist painting was created shortly before the dissolution of the Brücke artist group, which also included Heckel and Mueller. The painting was owned by the art historian and art dealer Wallerstein (1878-1944), who had to close his gallery during the Nazi era and emigrated to Italy in 1936. It was said that he was able to take a small part of his private collection with him, but had to sell other works of art. The picture of Kirchner's fellow artists playing chess was acquired by the Brücke Museum from the art market in 1973.
Main Image :Erich Heckel und Otto Mueller beim Schach“, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938). © Brückemuseum/Nick Ash
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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