User:Eli185/Sumpflegende

Swamp Legend (Sumpflegende) is the title of a small oil painting by Paul Klee created in 1919 which was the object of a restitution claim.

Sumpflegende has been in the possession of the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich since 1982, but ownership was disputed due to provenance. During the Nazi era, modern art was vilified and banned as "degenerate art". Sumpflegende was confiscated from the Provinzialmuseum Hannover in 1937. However, it was not owned by the museum, but was on loan from the art historian Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers. In July 2017, it became known that the heirs had reached a settlement with the city of Munich.

Description
Sumpflegende is classified in the series of cosmic landscapes created by Klee between 1917 and 1919. In abstract color spaces, dominated by sulfurous yellow and contrasted with violet, the objects arrange themselves in a naive way. In the dreamlike scenery, the human figure itself becomes a piece of nature:"Früher (schon als Kind) war mir die Landschaft ganz eindeutig. Eine Scenerie für Stimmungen der Seele. Jetzt beginnen gefährliche Momente, wo mich die Natur verschlucken will, ich bin dann gar nichts mehr, aber ich habe den Frieden."

Provenance
Shortly after its completion, the painting was purchased by Paul Küppers, director of the Hanover Artists' Association, and his wife Sophie, later Lissitzky-Küppers. In 1926 Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers loaned the painting, along with 15 other modernist works, to the Provinzialmuseum Hannover. On July 5, 1937, the Nazi Art Commission seized the painting as part of the anti "Degenerate Art" campaign. From July 19, 1937, it was presented in the Schmäh exhibition of the same name on the so-called "Dada wall". In 1941, Hitler's official art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt bought the painting from the German Reich for 500 Swiss francs. In 1962, it was sold at auction through the Lempertz auction house in Cologne and acquired by the Swiss collector Ernst Beyeler. Beyeler sold it to the Rosengart Gallery in Lucerne, where it remained from 1973 to 1982. It was then acquired for DM 700,000 by the Gabriele Münter and Johannes Eichner Foundation and the City of Munich, which loaned to the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus.

Jen Lissitzky, the son of Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers, filed a lawsuit for the restitution of the painting with the Munich Regional Court in 1992. This action was dismissed on the technical issue of statute of limitations. At the end of March 2012, the heirs again filed a lawsuit against the City of Munich on the grounds that there were new documents as evidence.

In July 2017, it became known that the heirs had reached a financial settlement for an undiclosed amount with the city of Munich which enabled the painting to remain in the Lenbachhaus.

Literature

 * Melissa Müller: Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers (1891–1978) Hannover / München. In: Melissa Müller, Monika Tatzkow: Verlorene Bilder, verlorene Leben. Jüdische Sammler und was aus ihren Kunstwerken wurde. Elisabeth Sandmann Verlag, München 2009, ISBN 978-3-938045-30-5, S. 98ff.
 * Ingeborg Prior: Die geraubten Bilder. Die abenteuerliche Geschichte der Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers und ihrer Kunstsammlung. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln 2002, ISBN 3-462-03084-1.