Baden-Württemberg restitutes paintings from the former Eduard Fuchs collection

The State of Baden-Württemberg is returning the triptych The Prodigal Son by Max Slevogt (1899) from the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart to the rightful heirs of Eduard Fuchs. The socialist-communist writer, cultural studies scholar and art collector Fuchs (1970-1940) had to flee from the National Socialists into exile in 1933. Forced to liquidate his remaining assets, he auctioned off his extensive art collection due to health and financial difficulties.

His multi-volume Illustrierte Sittengeschichte made Eduard Fuchs famous and wealthy. Fuchs was a founding member of the Spartacus League in 1918 and of the German Communist Party (KPD) a year later. After distancing himself from the KPD in 1928, he joined the Communist Party Opposition (KPO) in 1929. Politically active throughout his life, his unwavering convictions sealed his fate under the Nazi regime.

In the immediate aftermath of the Reichstag fire, which the NSDAP exploited as justification for persecuting political opponents, the police came for Fuchs on 27 February 1933, but he managed to avoid arrest. His Berlin villa was ransacked by the Gestapo in March 1933 and some items from his art collection were confiscated. Several of his publications were destroyed in the book burning on 10 May 1933. Fuchs and his second wife Margarete Fuchs, née Alsberg (1853-1953), managed to flee into exile in Paris in March 1933. While Fuchs himself faced persecution as a political target of the Nazi regime, his wife was likewise victimised due to being labelled a Jew according to Nazi ideology. The couple was forced to stay in exile, where Eduard Fuchs’ health worsened over time. In December 1936 he asked his daughter Gertraud Fuchs (1897-1960) to liquidate his remaining assets so that he could continue to support not only himself but also his former wife Frida Fuchs, née Schön (1876-1956). Fuchs’ extensive art collection was auctioned off in 1937/1938 at six auctions organised by Rudolph Lepke in Berlin and C. G. Boerner in Leipzig.

The triptych The Prodigal Son by Max Slevogt was in the collection from 1911 to 1938. Gertraud Fuchs consigned the painting twice for auction at the Rudolph Lepke Kunst-Auctions-Haus in Berlin on behalf of her father. It remained unsold in 1937, but in June 1938 it was auctioned off to an unknown buyer, probably for 1,500 to 1,700 reichsmarks, the price having been estimated at 4,000 reichsmarks. Current research indicates that the painting was sold below value. The work of art did not resurface again until 1949, when it appeared as an item on the balance sheet of the company Chiron-Werke in Tuttlingen. The sole owner and managing director of the company was Otto Stäbler (1890-1955), and it was from his legacy that the Staatsgalerie received the triptych in 1956.

The Staatsgalerie says it published the findings of provenance researcher Dr. Anja Heuß on the Eduard Fuchs collection on its website back in 2017: “A thorough assessment indicates that the provenance of the triptych by Max Slevogt has to be categorised as ‘problematic’, so contact was made with the heir, who formally waived any possible claims against Staatsgalerie Stuttgart”. The Staatsgalerie was subsequently contacted by Dr. Sabine Rudolph, the lawyer for the Fuchs community of heirs, and it transpired that the heir who had been named was in fact at no time authorised to act on behalf of the entire Fuchs community of heirs. The previously expressed waiver of the claim for restitution is therefore null and void.

Following constructive collaboration with Fuchs researcher Dr. Ulrich Weitz and Dr. Sabine Rudolph, the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts, in close consultation with Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, has once again come to the conclusion that this a case of cultural property confiscated as a result of Nazi persecution, and restitution of the work of art is currently being implemented. Eduard Fuchs was born in Göppingen and the Staatsgalerie is planning an event to commemorate him in 2025.

For further information online relating to provenance research at the Staatsgalerie and details of the provenances, see: staatsgalerie.de/en/collection/provenance-research

The German Lost Art Foundation is funding a project on the Eduard and Margarete Fuchs Collection under the direction of Dr. Ulrich Weitz: Sammlung Eduard und Margarete Fuchs: Rekonstruktion der geraubten Kunstwerke der Sammlung