Charlotte Weidler

Charlotte Weidler (1895–1983) was a German art dealer, curator and art historian. Her dealings concerning artworks from the collections of Paul Westheim and Alfred Flechtheim during the Nazi–era have been the focus of several high-profile lawsuits.

Charlotte Weidler
Born1895
Berlin, Germany
Died1983 (aged 87–88)
New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation(s)art dealer, curator
Known forPivotal role in bringing major works of German expressionism to the United States and the resulting restitution claims concerning the collections of Paul Westheim and Alfred Flechtheim

Early activities

Weidler was born in Berlin and dealt in modern art. Initially a close friend of the German Jewish art collector and editor of Das Kunstblatt, Paul Westheim, she later betrayed him. The exact nature of her actions regarding Westheim's art collection has been the subject of much controversy, generating lawsuits, book and articles and speculation as to her motivations.[1][2]

Curator at the Carnegie Institute of Art

Weidler began working as a curator for the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh while she was still in Berlin and continued after she emigrated to the United States in 1939, traveling between the two countries for work.[3][4] She made the acquaintance of the Pittsburg steel magnate G. David Thompson and helped him build his collection.[5] selected art to acquire and was responsible for bringing numerous important artworks into American museums.[6][7][8] Reputed to be an important expert in German modern art. Weidler's correspondence with the Carnegie is considered to provide "unique insight and detail about the situation of artists in Nazi Germany" and that her exchanges with Carnegie president Homer St. Gaudens are "an extraordinary source of information for provenance researchers about the location of artwork pre-war and the changing attitude towards modern art in Germany as the Nazis rose to power.".[9][10]

Controversies and lawsuits

Weidler's friend, the Jewish art collector Paul Westheim fled Nazi Germany for Paris in 1933, leaving his important art collection in Weidler's care.[11] After initially helping him, she cut off contact and, at end of World War II, she told Westheim that his paintings had been lost or destroyed.[12] However this turned out not to be true, as after Westheim's death, Weidler began selling the very same paintings.[13] Eventually someone who recognised one of the paintings informed Westheim's surviving family, who sued.[14][15] In 2013, Westheim's daughter Margit Frenk filed a lawsuit demanded the return of four paintings estimated to be worth more than three million dollars, including Max Pechstein's "Portrait of Paul Westheim" and a watercolor by Paul Klee.[16]

Weidler also claimed that the famous German Jewish dealer Alfred Flechtheim bequeathed paintings to her, but this assertion was also contested in several lawsuits.[17][18][19] In 2009, the family of the deceased artist Georg Grosz filed a claim against the Museum of Modern Art for the return of three paintings that Charlotte Weidler had sold to the MoMa saying that Grosz's art dealer Alfred Flechtheim had gifted them to her.[20][21] The Grosz family criticized Weidler's account as false, submitting evidence that the paintings had transited through a Dutch auction house Mak Van Waay known for dealing in looted art.[22][23] Weidler's testimony played a crucial role in the lawsuit.[24][25][26]

Some historians have tried to explain Weidler's actions as the result of a frustrated love affair with Westheim.[27]

Weidler also played a role in dealing with the property of the photographer (Else) Neulander Simon.[28] Persecuted as a Jew, Simon was "forced to hand the (photography) studio over to her friend Charlotte Weider.” Simon was deported to the concentration camp at Majdanek-Lubin and died in 1944.[29]

Notable artworks

Notable works that Weidler sold as her own include George Grosz' work, Portrait of the Poet Herrmann-Neisse (1927); Self-Portrait with a Model; and Republican Automatons.[30]

References
  1. Müller, Melissa; Tatzkow, Monika (2010). Lost lives, lost art: Jewish collectors, Nazi art theft, and the quest for justice. New York: Vendome Press. ISBN 978-0-86565-263-7. OCLC 505419574.
  2. "Lawsuit Over Works from Paul Westheim's Collection Dismissed – ARTnews.com". 2020-04-26. Archived from the original on 2020-04-26. Retrieved 2020-12-14.
  3. Kantner, Dorothy (1961-10-27). "Charlotte Weidler at Carnegie - An International Crowd Views International Art". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. p. 14. Retrieved 2020-12-21.
  4. Wasensteiner, Lucy (2018-10-09). The Twentieth Century German Art Exhibition: Answering Degenerate Art in 1930s London. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-351-00412-1.
  5. Gabriele, Sprigath (2010). Stefan Koldehoff: Die Bilder sind unter uns as Geschäft mit der NS-Raubkunst, Frankfurt: Eichborn, 2009. Universitätsbibliothek der Universität Heidelberg. pp. 44–54. ISBN 9783821858449. OCLC 950521064. Durch ihre fortgesetzte Artbeit für das Carnegie Institute lernte sie in Pittsburg den Stahlmagnated G. David Thompson kennen. Sie half ihn beim Zusammentragen ainer umfangreichen Giacomtti-Sammlung, wurder auf diese Weise mit dem scheuen Schweizer Plastiker bekannt und durfte in dessen Atelier fotografieren. Vor allem aber verkaufte sie nach und nach Werke aus der Sammlung Paul Westheim, zu dessen ursprünglichem Eigentüer sie inzwichen jeden Kontakt abgebrochen hatte.
  6. Cohan, William D. (2011-11-17). "MoMA's Problematic Provenances". ARTnews.com. Archived from the original on 8 December 2019. Retrieved 2020-12-16.
  7. "The Courier-Journal from Louisville, Kentucky on June 10, 1951 · Page 72". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2021-01-11. Responsible for the selection is Miss Charlotte Weidler who has selected German art for many years for Pittsburgh's Carnegie Institute International Exhibitions
  8. "The Ithaca Journal from Ithaca, New York on October 10, 1953 · 5". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2021-01-11. A photographic survey of contemporary German architecture. sponsored by the West German government and assembled by Dr. Charlotte Weidler
  9. "Methodologies and Resources: Carnegie Institute, Museum of Art records, 1883–1962". www.aaa.si.edu. Retrieved 2020-12-17. the records contain a list of German collectors of modern art around 1930, penned by Carnegie International Berlin-based consultant, Charlotte Weidler, for an upcoming visit by the director of the Carnegie to Germany. Additionally, Weidler's correspondence with Carnegie throughout the 1930s provides unique insight and detail about the situation of artists in Nazi Germany, and about matters of degenerate art[1]. Weidler's correspondence with Carnegie president Homer St. Gaudens is an extraordinary source of information for provenance researchers about the location of artwork pre-war and the changing attitude towards modern art in Germany as the Nazis rose to power.
  10. "Degenerate Art in Nazi Germany / Mimi Poser, Charlotte Weidler". The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation. Retrieved 2021-01-11.
  11. admin (2018-02-21). "Westheim, Paul". Retrieved 2020-12-14.
  12. Baier, Uta (2009-01-31). "Ich hebe alles, was Dir gehört, sorgfältig auf". DIE WELT. Archived from the original on 23 August 2015. Retrieved 2020-12-21.
  13. Dictionary of Art Historians (2018-02-21). "Westheim, Paul". Dictionary of Art Historians. Retrieved 2020-12-17. Westheim wrote to Weidler asking for his collection, but Weidler contended it had been destroyed. He remained in Mexico, gaining Mexican citizenship in 1954. He married Fenk in 1959. During a 1963 trip to Berlin to honor his work in Expressionism, he died. Weidler, in fact, still possessed most of Westheim's art collection and began selling it after his death.
  14. Müller, Melissa; Tatzkow, Monika (2010). Lost lives, lost art: Jewish collectors, Nazi art theft, and the quest for justice. New York: Vendome Press. ISBN 978-0-86565-263-7. OCLC 505419574.
  15. Rotermund-Reynard, Ines (2015-12-31). "The Art Historian Charlotte Weidler: a Lost Voice Speaks from the Moscow Special Archive". Echoes of Exile. De Gruyter. pp. 105–122. doi:10.1515/9783110290653.105. ISBN 978-3-11-029065-3.
  16. Klasfeld, Adam (2013-01-30). "Art Case Alleges WW II-Era Double-Cross". Courthouse News. Courthouse News. Retrieved 2020-12-17.
  17. Cohan, William D. (2011-11-17). "MoMA's Problematic Provenances". ARTnews.com. Retrieved 2020-12-14.
  18. "MoMA Sued Over German Works (Published 2009)". The New York Times. 2009-04-14. ISSN 0362-4331. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. Retrieved 2020-12-21. According to lawyers for the Grosz heirs, Charlotte Weidler, an art dealer and curator for the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh, said that she had inherited "Portrait of the Poet Max Herrmann-Neisse" from Flechtheim and that she gave it to Curt Valentin, a German dealer in Manhattan, to sell to the Museum of Modern Art in 1952. The museum bought "Republican Automatons" from a Toronto collector in 1946 and was given "Self-Portrait With Model" in 1954.
  19. O'Donnell, Nicholas M. (2017). A tragic fate : law and ethics in the battle over Nazi-looted art. ISBN 978-1-63425-733-6. OCLC 1232472815.
  20. Court Listener. "UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK K MARTIN GROSZ and LILIAN GROSZ, Index No.: 09-CV-3706 (CM)(THK) (ECF Case) Plaintiffs, against THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART" (PDF). Court Listener. Archived (PDF) from the original on 17 December 2020. A woman named Charlotte Weidler claimed that she "inherited" Herrrnann Neisse with Cognac in 1937 from Grosz' art dealer Alfred Flechtheim's estate. This claim is and was demonstrably false. MoMA claims title through Weidler and a dubious subsequent transaction with Curt Valentin, a Nazi agent and art dealer notorious for peddling artworks looted by the Nazis
  21. "MoMA Sued Over German Works (Published 2009)". The New York Times. 2009-04-14. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-12-17.
  22. Kaufman, Jason Edward (November 2009). "New evidence in Grosz Nazi loot case against MoMA". www.theartnewspaper.com. The Art Newspaper. Archived from the original on 17 December 2020. Retrieved 2020-12-17. The disputed works are Portrait of the Poet Max Herrmann-Neisse (with Cognac Glass), 1927, the 1928 oil Self-Portrait with a Model, and the 1920 gouache Republican Automatons. Grosz had consigned them to his dealer Alfred Flechtheim, who fled the country in 1933, as did Grosz. The dealer died in 1937 and the self-portrait and gouache ended up in a 1938 auction at Mak van Waay, an Amsterdam firm known as liquidators of Nazi looted property. Petropoulos calls the auction a "sham", something Nicholas and Stein deny.
  23. "Grosz v. Museum of Modern Art, 772 F. Supp. 2d 473 – CourtListener.com". CourtListener. Retrieved 2020-12-24.
  24. Martinez, Jose (2009-04-14). "MoMA sued over Hitler foe's paintings". Daily News. p. 25. Archived from the original on 11 January 2021. Retrieved 2021-01-11. The suit, filed in Manhattan Federal Court, charges that art dealer Charlotte Weidler sold Grosz's portrait of poet Max Herrmann-Neisse to the museum in 1952 through a dealer who specialized in art looted by the Nazis. Weidler, according to the suit, falsely claimed that she had inherited the portrait before peddling it to the museum.
  25. "Disputed Waiver Dooms Heir's Suit for Nazi Era Art". IFAR. 19 (3). 2018.
  26. Kreder, Jennifer Anglim. "Fighting Corruption of the Historical Record: Nazi-Looted Art Litigation" (PDF). KANSAS LAW REVIEW. Archived (PDF) from the original on 6 August 2017.
  27. Echoes of exile : Moscow Archives and the arts in Paris 1933-1945. Berlin: De Gruyter. 2015.
  28. Rédaction. "Helmut Newton s'expose au Grand Palais |" (in French). Retrieved 2021-02-04. En 1933, après l'instauration des premières lois anti-juives, Yva a été contrainte de cesser son activité. Le studio ayant été repris par Charlotte Weidler, une amie aryenne, Yva continue d'exercer
  29. "N Archives - Page 9 of 12". Mame Fashion Dictionary. Archived from the original on 4 February 2021. Retrieved 2021-02-04.
  30. Cohan, William D. (2011-11-17). "MoMA's Problematic Provenances". ARTnews.com. Archived from the original on 2019-12-08. Retrieved 2021-05-24. on April 12, 1937, while they were still in touch, Weidler wrote Westheim an odd letter, in which she claimed that she had "inherited" from Flechtheim, who had died a few weeks earlier, nine paintings by George Grosz, including "an early, very exquisite one," Max Herrmann-Neisse. According to Dowd, it is unlikely that Flechtheim would have left her these paintings as an inheritance, not only because he did not own the paintings (they were on consignment), but also because on January 18, 1936, he had made a will naming his nephew, Heinz Hulisch, as his sole heir. Weidler, however, acted as if she owned the nine works by Grosz that were in her possession.
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