Fritz Nathan

Fritz Nathan (30 June 1895 in Munich - 28 February 1972 in Zurich) was a German-Swiss gallery owner and art dealer.

Fritz Nathan
Born30 June 1895
Munich
Died28 February 1972 (1972-02-29) (aged 76)
Zurich
OccupationArt dealer

Early life

Fritz Nathan was born as a son from the second marriage of Alexander Nathan; from his father's first marriage he had four much older half-siblings. His mother was Irene Helbing, the sister of the Munich auctioneer Hugo Helbing, whose father was already an antique dealer. When Nathan was 13 years old, his father died and Helbing acted as his guardian.[1] When the First World War broke out, Nathan enrolled as a medical student and volunteered for the medical service. In 1922 he completed his medical studies with a doctorate. In the same year he married Wilhelmine Erika Heino. He joined the art shop of his half-brother Otto H. Nathan, which he continued to run alone after his death in 1930.

In 1924 the company moved to Ludwigstrasse in Munich and was named Ludwigs Galerie. Nathan was particularly interested in paintings from the German Romantic period, an era for which he was soon considered a specialist. He brokered works by Caspar David Friedrich to collectors and museums, including the 1930 painting Chalk Cliffs on Rügen from the Julius Freund Collection in Berlin to the Swiss collector and patron Oskar Reinhart from Winterthur, with whom Nathan had an increasingly close business relationship and friendship.[2]

The Ludwigs Galerie also showed monographic exhibitions during these years: 1926 on Karl Philipp Fohr, 1928 on Hans Thoma, 1931 on Friedrich Wasmann (Bernt Grönvold Collection) and 1934 on Ludwig Richter. In 1929, in cooperation with the Hugo Helbing company, Nathan organized an exhibition in Berlin on German painting 1780–1850. A thematic exhibition on romantic painting in Germany and France was held in 1931 with the Paul Cassirer company, Berlin, in new premises at Brienner Strasse 46 in Munich, and an exhibition on art in the age of Goethe in 1932 with the same company in Berlin.

Nazi persecution and Swiss art dealing

After the Nazis came to power, Nathan had to relocate the gallery to Ottostraße 5, after which the professional ban against Jews forced him to transfer the company to his long-term employee Käthe Thäter in 1935. In March 1936 he emigrated with his wife and three children to St. Gallen, where he had previously been commissioned to upgrade the quality of the Sturzenegger painting collection owned by the St. Gallen Art Museum.[3] Thanks to the help of Oskar Reinhart and St. Gallen City Mayor Konrad Nägeli, Nathan received a work permit. He was able to establish himself quickly and in 1937 became a member of the Swiss Art Trade Association (1953–1963 Vice President, then honorary member). With the new environment, Nathan expanded to Swiss and French painting of the 19th century, areas in which he was soon considered one of the best experts.

Controversy concerning Nazi-looted art and duress sales

During the Nazi era (1933–1945), Nathan sold many artworks that had been owned by German Jews who were fleeing the Nazis.[4] His defenders assert that he was helping the Jewish refugees, of which he was one. However many of the families disagree with this interpretation of events, and have launched lawsuits to recover artworks they say were sold under duress.[5] Nathan was listed by the Art Looting Investigation Unit in its Red Flag List of Names and is frequently cited as an important member of art selling networks both during and after the war.[6][7][8]

According to the final report of the Independent Expert Commission Switzerland - Second World War (Bergier report): "Among the emigrated art dealers, Fritz Nathan was probably the most important supplier for the large private collections of Oskar Reinhart and Emil G. Bührle."[9][10] He also worked with Swiss dealers like Walter Feilchenfeldt in the 1940s.[11][12]

In 1948 Nathan received Swiss citizenship, in 1951 he moved with his family to Zurich, where he continued to build up Emil Georg Bührle's private collection. He also remained active for Oskar Reinhart, for whom he was able to negotiate several purchases from the estate of Otto Gerstenberg's collection, for example the painting Au Café by Édouard Manet.

Nathan's activities expanded in Zurich, he brokered works to museums in Switzerland, Germany, England and the USA as well as to a number of Swiss and foreign private collectors.[13][14][15] After the death of his wife Erika in 1953, he married Ilse-Gabriele Nast-Kolb (1920–2016) in 1955. His son Peter Nathan (1925–2001) went on to become a Dr. phil. joined his father's art shop in 1953, Fritz Nathan remained active as a dealer until shortly before the end of his life. In 2017 his grandson Johannes ran the company in Zurich and Potsdam.

Lawsuits and restitution claims for art

Several artworks that passed through Fritz Nathan, Peter Nathan or Nathan Galleries have been the object of lawsuits or restitution claims. Some of these include:

  • Rosiers sous les arbres by Gustav Klimt, bought by the Louvre from Nathan Galleries in 1980, formerly in the collection of Holocaust victim Nora Stiasny : Nathan Galleries had bought the painting from the Nazi artist Philipp Häusler, who acquired the Klimt in 1938 in ambiguous circumstances from Nora Stiasny ; France restituted the painting to Stiasny's heirs in 2022[16][17] [18]
  • Odalisque by Camille Corot, in the Kunstmuseum St. Gallen, formerly in the collection of Josse Bernheim-Jeune, settlement with joint donation to the museum[19]
  • Champ de coquelicots près de Vétheuil by Claude Monet, in the Emil Bührle collection, formerly in the collection of Max Emden.[20] The Bührle collection rejected the claim.[21][22]
  • The Rock of Hautepierre by Gustave Courbet, at the Art Institute of Chicago, formerly in the collection of Max Silberberg, settlement in 2001 with Silberberg heir.[23][24]
  • Lady with Red Blouse by Adolph Menzel, in the Oskar Reinhart collection, formerly in the collector of Erna Felicia and Hans Lachmann-Mosse, expropriated from the family in 1934 and restituted by the Oskar Reinhart Foundation to the Mosse heirs in 2015[25]
  • View of Lake Altaussee and the Dachstein by Ferdinand George Waldmüller (1834) on loan by the German government to the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, restituted to the heirs of Hermann Eissler in 2020.[26]

Publications (selection)
Exhibition catalogs of the Ludwigs Galerie, Munich
  • Carl Philipp Fohr (1927)
  • Emil Lugo (1928)
  • Deutsche Maler 1780–1850 (1929 in Zusammenarbeit mit der Berliner Niederlassung der Fa. Hugo Helbing)
  • Hans Thoma (1929)
  • Romantische Malerei in Deutschland und Frankreich (1931 in Zusammenarbeit mit der Firma Paul Cassirer, Berlin)
  • Sammlung Bernt Grönvold, Werke von Friedrich Wasmann u. a. (1932)
  • Deutsche Kunst im Zeitalter Goethes (1932 in Zusammenarbeit mit der Firma Paul Cassirer, Berlin)
  • Ludwig Richter (1934)
Publications of Fritz Nathan during his work in Switzerland (selection)
  • Fritz Nathan: Zehn Jahre Tätigkeit in St. Gallen: 1936–1946. St. Gallen 1946.
  • Fritz Nathan und Peter Nathan: 25 Jahre 1936–1961. Winterthur 1961.
  • Fritz Nathan und Peter Nathan: 1922–1972. Zürich 1972.
  • Fritz Nathan: Erinnerungen aus meinem Leben. Zürich 1965.

Literature
  • Alex Vömel, Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, Fritz Nathan: Freuden und Leiden eines Kunsthändlers. Düsseldorf 1964.
  • Hans Curjel: Nachruf in Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 2. März 1972.
  • Gabriele Nathan-Nast-Kolb (1997), "Nathan, Fritz", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 18, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, p. 744; (full text online)
  • Esther Tisa Francini, Anja Heuss, Georg Kreis: Fluchtgut – Raubgut. Der Transfer von Kulturgütern in und über die Schweiz 1933–1945 und die Frage der Restitution. Zürich 2001, ISBN 3-0340-0601-2.
  • Jörg Krummenacher: Flüchtiges Glück. Die Flüchtlinge im Grenzkanton St. Gallen zur Zeit des Nationalsozialismus. Zürich 2005, ISBN 3-85791-480-7.
  • Götz Adriani (Hrsg.): Die Kunst des Handelns. Meisterwerke des 14. bis 20. Jahrhunderts bei Fritz und Peter Nathan. Ausstellungskatalog, Kunsthalle Tübingen, Ostfildern 2005, ISBN 3-7757-1658-0.
  • The Path of Art from Switzerland to America from the Late 1930s to the Early 1950s Laurie A. Stein Declassified Swiss government report detailing traffic in Nazi looted art through Switzerland

References
  1. Tübingen, Kunsthalle (2005). Die Kunst des Handelns: Meisterwerke des 14. bis 20. Jahrhunderts bei Fritz und Peter Nathan (in German). Hatje Cantz. ISBN 978-3-7757-1658-1.
  2. "Restitutions and Case News: 23 June 2015: Restitution of Adolph Menzel pastel to the heirs of Berlin publisher Rudolf Mosse (1843–1920)". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2021-02-16.
  3. "St. Gallen als Drehscheibe des Kunsthandels - St Gallen as the hub of the art trade".
  4. "In the name of the father" (PDF). Mosse Art Project.
  5. "Restitutions and Case News: 23 June 2015: Restitution of Adolph Menzel pastel to the heirs of Berlin publisher Rudolf Mosse (1843–1920)". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2021-02-18.
  6. Petropoulos, Jonathan. "Art Dealer Networks in the Third Reich and in the Postwar Period" (PDF). Fritz Nathan, the German-Jewish dealer who had fled the Reich to re-establish himself in St. Gallen and Zurich, played a key role in the postwar network. Nathan helped arms manufacturer Emil Bu¨hrle expand his collection, and some of the works were found to have been previously looted. Other key dealers who traded in looted objects include Christoph Bernoulli in Basel (who sold art from persecuted German-Jewish dealer Alfred Flechtheim)[...])
  7. swissinfo.ch, Michèle Laird. "Swiss urged to provide missing links to Nazi-looted art". SWI swissinfo.ch. Retrieved 2021-02-18. As a land of refuge for Jewish families and their possessions, as well as a turnstile for Nazi-sympathetic art dealers, Switzerland became an important art sales hub during and after the Nazi era. Several Swiss galleries, including Gutekunst Klipstein (now Kornfeld) in Bern[...], Fischer in Lucerne and Fritz Nathan in Zurich organized major sales and auctions that allowed innumerable works of art to be transferred abroad, mainly to the US.
  8. "Art Looting Intelligence Unit (ALIU) Reports 1945–1946 and ALIU Red Flag Names List and Index". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2021-02-18.
  9. "Schwarzbuch Bührle: Raubkunst für das Kunsthaus Zürich? - The Bührle Black Book: Looted Art for the Kunsthaus Zurich?". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2021-02-16.
  10. "Bührle et ses chefs-d'œuvre au prix du sang - Le Journal des Arts - n° 523". Le Journal Des Arts (in French). Retrieved 2021-04-19.
  11. "Georges-Henri Manuel · Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec · Stiftung Sammlung E.G. Bührle". www.buehrle.ch. Retrieved 2021-12-19.
  12. "Poppy field near Vétheuil · Claude Monet · Stiftung Sammlung E.G. Bührle". www.buehrle.ch. Retrieved 2021-12-19.
  13. "NGA Fritz Nathan Provenance". www.nga.gov. Retrieved 2021-02-16.
  14. Vogel, Carol (1995-03-17). "Inside Art (Published 1995)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-02-16.
  15. swissinfo.ch, Michèle Laird. "Swiss urged to provide missing links to Nazi-looted art". SWI swissinfo.ch. Retrieved 2021-03-21.
  16. "Spolié par les nazis, le seul Klimt des collections françaises quitte le musée d'Orsay pour être restitué aux ayants droit". Connaissance des Arts (in French). 2021-03-15. Archived from the original on 2021-03-15. Retrieved 2021-03-21. La galerie du prétendu ami de Stiasny conserve Rosiers sous les arbres jusque dans les années 1960, après quoi sa trace se perd. On le retrouve 20 ans plus tard à la galerie Peter Nathan à Zurich, au moment de la préfiguration du musée d'Orsay, qui se constitue et cherche des collections.
  17. "France to return Klimt painting, which hangs in the Musée d'Orsay, to heirs of Viennese Jewish owner". www.theartnewspaper.com. 15 March 2021. Archived from the original on 2021-03-15. Retrieved 2021-03-21.
  18. "Restitution du tableau de Gustav Klimt, Rosiers sous les arbres, aux ayants droit de Nora Stiasny". www.culture.gouv.fr (in French). Retrieved 2023-07-21.
  19. "Die Schenkung Dauberville / Nathan: Camille Corot: L'Odalisque, 1871-73" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2021-03-21.
  20. Paris, Mathieu van Berchem. "La collection Bührle à Paris - en toute transparence?". SWI swissinfo.ch (in French). Archived from the original on 2019-06-23. Retrieved 2021-03-21. Prenons l'inestimable «Champ de coquelicots près de Vétheuil», de Claude Monet, en affiche de l'exposition au Musée Maillol. Le Chilien Juan Carlos Emden le réclame, estimant que son père l'a vendu au marchand d'art suisse Fritz Nathan, qui l'a ensuite revendu à Emil Bührle, à un prix trop bas. Pressé qu'il était de quitter l'Allemagne nazie pour l'Amérique latine. La Fondation Bührle conteste cette version et détaille sur son site l'itinéraire de l'œuvre, comme d'ailleurs des autres tableaux de la collection. Pour la fondation, Emden, même réfugié au Chili, négociait bien ses ventes.
  21. "La fondation Bührle estime être le propriétaire du Monet". La Presse (in French). 2012-11-01. Retrieved 2021-03-21.
  22. "Jewish former owners want return of Monet masterpiece". Auction Central News. 2012-10-31. Retrieved 2021-03-21. Max Emden was forced to flee Nazi Germany in 1933 for Ticino in Switzerland, where he built the Villa Emden to house his large art collection, including "Poppy Field near Vetheuil", one of Monet's most famous paintings. After his death in 1940, his only son Hans Erich Emden was forced to sell his father's art collection in haste to finance his trip fleeing Europe for South America.
  23. "Corrections - The New York Times". The New York Times. 2021-03-20. Archived from the original on 2021-03-20. Retrieved 2021-03-21.
  24. Courbet, Gustave. "The Rock of Hautepierre". The Art Institute of Chicago. Retrieved 2021-03-21. Max Silberberg, Breslau, by 1923 to 1935 [according to 18 July 1967 letter from Fritz Nathan to Charles Cunningham in curatorial file, and Scheffler 1923]; sold Galerie Paul Graupe, Berlin, 23 March 1935, no. 20 [price given in Die Weltkunst 1935]. German private collection [according to Alexander, Graf Strasoldo of Lempertz, Cologne, letter of 21 September 1998 in curatorial file]; sold Lempertz, Cologne, 11–14 November 1964, no. 289, to Galerie Nathan, Zurich [Nathan letter cited above]; sold by Galerie Nathan to Paul Rosenberg Gallery and Co., New York, 4 June 1965 [copy of invoice in curatorial file]; sold by Paul Rosenberg Gallery to the Art Institute, 1967.
  25. "Restitutions and Case News: 23 June 2015: Restitution of Adolph Menzel pastel to the heirs of Berlin publisher Rudolf Mosse (1843–1920)". www.lootedart.com. Archived from the original on 2020-07-19. Retrieved 2021-03-21. Erna Felicia and Hans Lachmann-Mosse, Mosse's daughter and son-in-law, were unlawfully deprived of the drawing, 'Lady with Red Blouse', shortly after the Nazi takeover in Germany in 1933. Oskar Reinhart purchased the pastel from the art dealer Fritz Nathan in Munich in 1934.
  26. "FERDINAND GEORG WALDMÜLLER (VIENNA 1793–1865 HINTERBRÜHL)". www.christies.com. Archived from the original on 2021-05-01. Retrieved 2021-05-01. Dr. Hermann Eissler (1860–1953), Vienna, by 1930. Banned from export under the Nazi regime and held in the apartment of the above, 29 October 1938. Berta Morelli (1893 – 1975), Vienna, by December 1938, acquired as a gift from her father, Dr Hermann Eissler. Purchased by Maria Almas Dietrich, Munich, together with two other paintings by Waldmüller from the above and Hortense Eissler for Reich Chancellery in May 1939. Reich Chancellery, by whom acquired from the above as part of the collection for the planned Linz Museum (Linz no. 734). Recovered by the Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives Section for the Salt Mines, Alt Aussee (no. 6442), and transferred to the Central Collecting Point, Munich, 22 October 1945 (MCCP no. 11228). with Galerie Nathan, Zurich. Transferred into the custody of the Bavarian Ministerpräsident, December 1948, thereafter into the custody of the German federal government, June 1949. On loan from the above to the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe, 1966 (inv. no. Lg 755). Restituted to the heirs of Dr Herman Eissler in 2020.
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