Handicrafts and paintings |
Collection of Siegfried Fuchs
Authors:
Kathrin Pallestrang,
Magdalena Puchberger,
Claudia Spring
Kathrin Pallestrang,
Magdalena Puchberger,
Claudia Spring
The network around the Fuchs collection
The restitution of Siegfried Fuchs’s collection is of particular significance for us at the ÖMV. It is not only the fact that it was the first dossier, establishing provenance research in the museum. The dossier also revealed a network of people, things, places, institutions and times. In the context of the relational museum and its focus on interactions, the annexation of Austria to the Nazi German Reich in March 1938 brought about a hitherto unseen change in the meaning and context in which museums operated.
Things and people
In 1938 and 1940, seventeen objects from Siegfried Fuchs were acquired by the ÖMV. Then and now, these objects are entangled in a network of relationships. A characteristic feature of the Fuchs “collection”, possibly designated as such for the first time only in relation to the Nazi asset declaration, is that it consisted of minor objects. They had a theoretical or personal value or were souvenirs, but in monetary terms they were insignificant. Fuchs had had some of them for over forty years. In the asset declaration he stated that none of the objects was worth more than 50 reichsmarks, and the monuments authority in 1939 rejected the application to secure the objects because of the “comparatively minor significance of the collection”. This is important in terms of the objects and collections in the ÖMV, which by its nature focuses on minor objects that are of value because of their personal or theoretical baggage. Director Arthur Haberlandt chose objects for the museum collections and in that way gave them not only a new function but also a new value. The personal significance was replaced by their significance for the museum and national identity.
Places
The new laws and administrative and organizational regulations by the Nazi regime after the annexation in March 1938, such as the Fifth Regulation on the Reich Citizenship Act banning Jewish lawyers from working, or the Reich Flight Tax, made it necessary to sell objects, which then became subject to different processes. There were the places where their legal status was determined and officially negotiated – the Dorotheum as a major auction house and pawn shop, or the Property Transaction Office, where Jews had to declare their assets, or the Central Office for Jewish Emigration. Then there were the institutions where Fuchs sought to sell his collection and which ultimately acquired and kept them. This provides the link between the Fuchs collection, which only became visible as an entity through the looting and later the provenance research and publications on that subject, and the institutions subject to the Art Restitution Act (MAK, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Museum of Military History, Austrian National Library), those coming under the Vienna provincial legislation (Vienna City Library, Wien Museum) and those without a legal obligation that are of significance as hubs within the network (ÖMV). Fuchs was able to keep a few objects and take them with him to Shanghai in 1940.
Times and dynamics
There were difficult times and myriad developments between the Nazi takeover of power in Austrian in March 1938 and Fuchs’s departure for Shanghai in December 1940, that can also be seen in the objects and sources at the ÖMV. Fuchs had to sell objects urgently on a number of occasions: in 1938 to obtain funds after he was banned from working, and to pay the Jewish Asset Levy (20 per cent of the value of assets) and Reich Flight Tax. Or in 1940, when the proceeds of sale were no longer sufficient, to pay the 400 US dollars demanded by the Shanghai Municipal Council for permission to live in the International Settlements.
The objects that Fuchs was obliged to sell to the ÖMV show just how perfidious the Nazi looting was. Fuchs had to sell things to the museum at a time when they did not bring him much revenue because of the coercive nature of the transactions and because the art and antiques market and hence also the folk art market were inundated with objects for that reason. By contrast, public and private museums and collections not affected by the Nazi persecution were able to benefit from this situation. In the annual report in the Wiener Zeitschrift für Volkskunde published by the Ethnographic Society, museum director and society chairperson Arthur Haberlandt described 1938 “as the year of destiny for the German nation” that “will live on indelibly in history”. He envisaged that the ÖMV in Vienna would not only confirm its “status as a cultural institution for local and comparative folk life” and extend its “validity and effectiveness as a house of German ethnic culture in the south-east” but at this time already contributed to the “decisive revival of museum activity in all areas […] Since September the museum has been able to purchase folk art works and other collection items in the public interest.” For 1939 Haberlandt predicted a “strikingly large” increase in the museum collections, for which 4,400 reichsmarks have been earmarked. For Fuchs the “collection” was vital to his life and survival and also obliged him to sell the items at prices much below their real value. Haberlandt on the other hand was able to step up his purchasing activities on behalf of the ÖMV and to acquire objects cheaply from forced sales and even to make demands of Fuchs.
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The restitution of Siegfried Fuchs’s collection is of particular significance for us at the ÖMV. It is not only the fact that it was the first dossier, establishing provenance research in the museum. The dossier also revealed a network of people, things, places, institutions and times. In the context of the relational museum and its focus on interactions, the annexation of Austria to the Nazi German Reich in March 1938 brought about a hitherto unseen change in the meaning and context in which museums operated.
Things and people
In 1938 and 1940, seventeen objects from Siegfried Fuchs were acquired by the ÖMV. Then and now, these objects are entangled in a network of relationships. A characteristic feature of the Fuchs “collection”, possibly designated as such for the first time only in relation to the Nazi asset declaration, is that it consisted of minor objects. They had a theoretical or personal value or were souvenirs, but in monetary terms they were insignificant. Fuchs had had some of them for over forty years. In the asset declaration he stated that none of the objects was worth more than 50 reichsmarks, and the monuments authority in 1939 rejected the application to secure the objects because of the “comparatively minor significance of the collection”. This is important in terms of the objects and collections in the ÖMV, which by its nature focuses on minor objects that are of value because of their personal or theoretical baggage. Director Arthur Haberlandt chose objects for the museum collections and in that way gave them not only a new function but also a new value. The personal significance was replaced by their significance for the museum and national identity.
Places
The new laws and administrative and organizational regulations by the Nazi regime after the annexation in March 1938, such as the Fifth Regulation on the Reich Citizenship Act banning Jewish lawyers from working, or the Reich Flight Tax, made it necessary to sell objects, which then became subject to different processes. There were the places where their legal status was determined and officially negotiated – the Dorotheum as a major auction house and pawn shop, or the Property Transaction Office, where Jews had to declare their assets, or the Central Office for Jewish Emigration. Then there were the institutions where Fuchs sought to sell his collection and which ultimately acquired and kept them. This provides the link between the Fuchs collection, which only became visible as an entity through the looting and later the provenance research and publications on that subject, and the institutions subject to the Art Restitution Act (MAK, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Museum of Military History, Austrian National Library), those coming under the Vienna provincial legislation (Vienna City Library, Wien Museum) and those without a legal obligation that are of significance as hubs within the network (ÖMV). Fuchs was able to keep a few objects and take them with him to Shanghai in 1940.
Times and dynamics
There were difficult times and myriad developments between the Nazi takeover of power in Austrian in March 1938 and Fuchs’s departure for Shanghai in December 1940, that can also be seen in the objects and sources at the ÖMV. Fuchs had to sell objects urgently on a number of occasions: in 1938 to obtain funds after he was banned from working, and to pay the Jewish Asset Levy (20 per cent of the value of assets) and Reich Flight Tax. Or in 1940, when the proceeds of sale were no longer sufficient, to pay the 400 US dollars demanded by the Shanghai Municipal Council for permission to live in the International Settlements.
The objects that Fuchs was obliged to sell to the ÖMV show just how perfidious the Nazi looting was. Fuchs had to sell things to the museum at a time when they did not bring him much revenue because of the coercive nature of the transactions and because the art and antiques market and hence also the folk art market were inundated with objects for that reason. By contrast, public and private museums and collections not affected by the Nazi persecution were able to benefit from this situation. In the annual report in the Wiener Zeitschrift für Volkskunde published by the Ethnographic Society, museum director and society chairperson Arthur Haberlandt described 1938 “as the year of destiny for the German nation” that “will live on indelibly in history”. He envisaged that the ÖMV in Vienna would not only confirm its “status as a cultural institution for local and comparative folk life” and extend its “validity and effectiveness as a house of German ethnic culture in the south-east” but at this time already contributed to the “decisive revival of museum activity in all areas […] Since September the museum has been able to purchase folk art works and other collection items in the public interest.” For 1939 Haberlandt predicted a “strikingly large” increase in the museum collections, for which 4,400 reichsmarks have been earmarked. For Fuchs the “collection” was vital to his life and survival and also obliged him to sell the items at prices much below their real value. Haberlandt on the other hand was able to step up his purchasing activities on behalf of the ÖMV and to acquire objects cheaply from forced sales and even to make demands of Fuchs.
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