Handicrafts and paintings |
Collection of Siegfried Fuchs
Authors:
Kathrin Pallestrang,
Magdalena Puchberger,
Claudia Spring
Kathrin Pallestrang,
Magdalena Puchberger,
Claudia Spring
The Siegfried Fuchs dossier as a signal to the museum and beyond
The management board and members of the Ethnographic Society (Verein für Volkskunde), which was founded in 1894 and still runs the museum, decided in early 2014 to conduct systematic provenance research of the museum’s inventory in accordance with the Art Restitution Act: create dossiers of suspicious objects for submission to the Art Restitution Advisory Board, and fully implement its restitution recommendations. The Commission for Provenance Research consented to work with the private Volkskundemuseum Wien, and a cooperation agreement was signed. The museum also undertook to cooperate with the National Fund for Victims of National Socialism and to publish photos and information on objects of unexplained provenance in its database.
In 2015, the historian Claudia Spring, a member of the project team, began the professional provenance research in the ÖMV with its 200,000 objects, 300,000 photos and the 100,000 books in its library, which is open to the public, on folk life and European ethnology and related subjects. Some preliminary work had been carried out, which formed a good basis for the systematic provenance research. The preparations included the Austrian Science Fund project “Museum strategies in times of political upheaval: the Volkskundemuseum Wien from 1930 to 1950” in 2013 by Birgit Johler and Magdalena Puchberger – the latter is also a member of the virtual gallery project team. In the years before, the collections had been extensively digitized, and museum staff had combed through the library inventory, focusing on acquisitions between 1938 and 1945. Thanks to its archive, which contains personnel files, management correspondence and provenance files for many objects, the conditions for systematic provenance research in the Volkskundemuseum Wien are excellent.
This initial research revealed that the ÖMV, like many other museums, had exploited the persecution and expulsion by the Nazi regime, to acquire new objects.
Claudia Spring started by comparing the names of people and institutions from whom the ÖMV had acquired objects and books between 1938 and 1945 with the findings of provenance researchers in federal museums. This already showed that the museum was a hub in the complex of looting, forced sales and attempts at flight during the Nazi period. She wanted to make this known as quickly as possible to emphasize that provenance research in private institutions was also vital, even if they were not covered by the Art Restitution Act.
This is vividly demonstrated by the Fuchs collection. Not only the ÖMV, but also the Austrian National Library, the Museum of Applied Arts, the Kunsthistorisches Museum and Museum of Military History all acquired objects from Siegfried Fuchs during the Nazi period. The Art Restitution Advisory Board has already issued decisions in the first three cases. The Vienna restitution commission also advised the restitution to Fuchs’s legal successors of objects and books from the Wien Museum and Vienna City Library.
The purchase of objects from the Fuchs collection by the ÖMV is well documented and it was therefore possible to compile a dossier immediately for presentation both internally and externally. Comparable decisions by federal and provincial institutions indicated that a restitution recommendation was highly likely. Claudia Spring wished to prepare the way for the return of the objects to Fuchs’s legal successors as quickly as possible. The Fuchs dossier would also demonstrate that not only federal museums but also private museums in Austria unlawfully acquired assets from persons persecuted during the Nazi period. In the context of restitution and the culture of remembrance, long-term financial support for systematic provenance research in private museums is essential.
The research and the dossier on the Fuchs collection were concluded in July 2015, and at its meeting of 15 October that year, the Art Restitution Advisory Board recommended its restitution. The ÖMV followed this recommendation as the decision by the Ethnographic Society mentioned earlier required.
The Austrian National Library collections (decision 2005)
had been returned promptly to the heirs, but the necessary updating of the legal succession proved very complicated and for that reason the objects in the Museum of Applied Arts (decision 2006) and Kunsthistorisches Museum (2012) were not returned until the decision on the objects in the ÖMV. Further research by the staff of the Jewish Community (IKG) made it possible to identify and contact the new legal successors. They did not live in Austria and therefore authorized someone in Vienna to take charge of the Fuchs collection.
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The management board and members of the Ethnographic Society (Verein für Volkskunde), which was founded in 1894 and still runs the museum, decided in early 2014 to conduct systematic provenance research of the museum’s inventory in accordance with the Art Restitution Act: create dossiers of suspicious objects for submission to the Art Restitution Advisory Board, and fully implement its restitution recommendations. The Commission for Provenance Research consented to work with the private Volkskundemuseum Wien, and a cooperation agreement was signed. The museum also undertook to cooperate with the National Fund for Victims of National Socialism and to publish photos and information on objects of unexplained provenance in its database.
In 2015, the historian Claudia Spring, a member of the project team, began the professional provenance research in the ÖMV with its 200,000 objects, 300,000 photos and the 100,000 books in its library, which is open to the public, on folk life and European ethnology and related subjects. Some preliminary work had been carried out, which formed a good basis for the systematic provenance research. The preparations included the Austrian Science Fund project “Museum strategies in times of political upheaval: the Volkskundemuseum Wien from 1930 to 1950” in 2013 by Birgit Johler and Magdalena Puchberger – the latter is also a member of the virtual gallery project team. In the years before, the collections had been extensively digitized, and museum staff had combed through the library inventory, focusing on acquisitions between 1938 and 1945. Thanks to its archive, which contains personnel files, management correspondence and provenance files for many objects, the conditions for systematic provenance research in the Volkskundemuseum Wien are excellent.
This initial research revealed that the ÖMV, like many other museums, had exploited the persecution and expulsion by the Nazi regime, to acquire new objects.
Claudia Spring started by comparing the names of people and institutions from whom the ÖMV had acquired objects and books between 1938 and 1945 with the findings of provenance researchers in federal museums. This already showed that the museum was a hub in the complex of looting, forced sales and attempts at flight during the Nazi period. She wanted to make this known as quickly as possible to emphasize that provenance research in private institutions was also vital, even if they were not covered by the Art Restitution Act.
This is vividly demonstrated by the Fuchs collection. Not only the ÖMV, but also the Austrian National Library, the Museum of Applied Arts, the Kunsthistorisches Museum and Museum of Military History all acquired objects from Siegfried Fuchs during the Nazi period. The Art Restitution Advisory Board has already issued decisions in the first three cases. The Vienna restitution commission also advised the restitution to Fuchs’s legal successors of objects and books from the Wien Museum and Vienna City Library.
The purchase of objects from the Fuchs collection by the ÖMV is well documented and it was therefore possible to compile a dossier immediately for presentation both internally and externally. Comparable decisions by federal and provincial institutions indicated that a restitution recommendation was highly likely. Claudia Spring wished to prepare the way for the return of the objects to Fuchs’s legal successors as quickly as possible. The Fuchs dossier would also demonstrate that not only federal museums but also private museums in Austria unlawfully acquired assets from persons persecuted during the Nazi period. In the context of restitution and the culture of remembrance, long-term financial support for systematic provenance research in private museums is essential.
The research and the dossier on the Fuchs collection were concluded in July 2015, and at its meeting of 15 October that year, the Art Restitution Advisory Board recommended its restitution. The ÖMV followed this recommendation as the decision by the Ethnographic Society mentioned earlier required.
The Austrian National Library collections (decision 2005)
had been returned promptly to the heirs, but the necessary updating of the legal succession proved very complicated and for that reason the objects in the Museum of Applied Arts (decision 2006) and Kunsthistorisches Museum (2012) were not returned until the decision on the objects in the ÖMV. Further research by the staff of the Jewish Community (IKG) made it possible to identify and contact the new legal successors. They did not live in Austria and therefore authorized someone in Vienna to take charge of the Fuchs collection.
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