The advisory commission in connection with the return of Nazi-related confiscated cultural property, especially from Jewish property, did not recommend the return of Lovis Corinth's “Portrait Alfred Kerr” to the heirs of the previous Jewish owner Robert Graetz.

The painting from 1907, which was acquired by the Staatliche Schauspielbühnen Berlin in 1956/57, is in the holdings of the Stadtmuseum Berlin Foundation.

Corinth painted it for the fortieth birthday of the Berlin critic Alfred Kerr.

Rose-Maria Gropp

Editor in the features section, responsible for the “art market”.

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Since 1926 at the latest, it has belonged to the architect Leo Nachtlicht, from whom Robert Graetz possibly acquired it in 1932.

Graetz was deported to the Trawniki concentration camp in 1942 and pronounced dead on December 31, 1945.

Before that, he had to sell his villa property in Berlin to the SS.

Parts of the household goods and art objects were auctioned;

Corinth's painting was not among them.

Its whereabouts were unclear until it was offered on the art market in 1956 by the children of Gertrud Kahle, who was also persecuted by the National Socialists.

Four fates of persecution

The circumstances of how the picture got into her family cannot be adequately clarified. Gertrud Kahle survived the Theresienstadt concentration camp, but took her own life in November 1945. After an agreement between the heirs of Robert Graetz and Gertrud Kahle, the purchase by the Schiller Theater was completed in 1957. In the opinion of the Advisory Commission, in view of the complicated situation, “it has not been shown with sufficient probability” that the picture “Robert Graetz was confiscated due to persecution” and that he was the primary victim.

Because Leo Nachtlicht and his wife were also exposed to the repression of the Nazi state. It cannot be ruled out that “Portrait Alfred Kerr” was withdrawn from them as a result of Nazi persecution. Nachtlicht died in 1942 in the Jewish Hospital Berlin; his wife Anna was deported to Riga and murdered. In addition, the settlement concluded in 1957 precludes a return to the heirs of Robert Graetz.

In conclusion, the Advisory Commission “attaches great importance to the observation that the painting is oppressively linked to three - if you add the sitter, to four - the fates of persecution. The families of Alfred Kerr, Leo Nachtlicht, Robert Graetz and Gertrud Kahle were all victims of National Socialist persecution. They were oppressed, robbed, deported, driven to flight or murdered ”. The museum should appropriately honor this provenance when dealing with Corinth's paintings in the future.