Locating Works from the Walter Kaesbach Donation
Since the winter semester 2022/23, students from the Art History Department at Freie Universität Berlin will be researching the whereabouts of artworks that were donated to the museum by Walter Kaesbach in the 1920s and subsequently confiscated in 1937 as part of the Nazi-era campaign to rid German culture of so-called “degenerate art.” The museum was left with seven works from the collection in 1937; only three could be reacquired for the Museum Abteiberg collection. The whereabouts of many of these works remains unknown.
The research project is being conducted in cooperation with Museum Abteiberg. It is helmed by Dr. Meike Hoffmann, who leads the “Degenerate Art” research group at the FU Berlin’s Art History Department.
Fig.: Heinrich Nauen, Herbstlandschaft mit Krähen (Autumn landscape with crows), 1919, watercolor, dimensions unknown, first donated by Walter Kaesbach 1922, confiscated in 1937, whereabouts unknown, photo: Stadtarchiv Mönchengladbach / Mönchengladbach City Archive