Emil Nolde, “Harvest Scene”, black ink with brush and watercolors on sturdy drawing paper, 1907/1908, 36 x 49 cm.
Image: State Museum of Art & Culture Oldenburg
The Nazis had ostracized Emil Nolde’s painting “Harvest Scene” as “degenerate.” Now the State Museum of Art and Culture in Oldenburg is buying back the picture that it already owned.
Dhe large-format watercolor “Harvest Scene” by the expressionist Emil Nolde (1867–1956), confiscated by the National Socialists in 1937 as part of the “Degenerate Art” campaign, returns to the collection of the Landesmuseum Kunst & Kultur Oldenburg. The Cultural Foundation of the States, which also announced the purchase, supported the purchase with 16,481.66 euros. Other sponsors include the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture and the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation.
In 1923, the then newly founded State Museum acquired the watercolor. It was created in 1907 on the Baltic Sea island of Alsen, which is now part of Denmark, where Emil and Ada Nolde stayed in the summer. It shows a farmer and a farmer’s wife harvesting grain.
Gurlitt acquired the picture in 1940
In 1937, the watercolor, like all of Emil Nolde’s works acquired for Oldenburg up to 1933, was confiscated by order of the Reich Ministry for Science, Education and Public Education as part of the “Degenerate Art” confiscation campaign and later went on sale. In 1940, the Hamburg art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt acquired the watercolor; it later made its way to the USA. When the work was offered for auction by a Munich auction house in June 2023, it was identified as part of the State Museum’s original Nolde collection based on a written note at the bottom left of the picture.
Prof. Dr. Markus Hilgert, Secretary General of the Cultural Foundation of the States, commented on the reacquisition: “To mark the 100th anniversary of the acquisition of the watercolor ‘Harvest Scene’, it is now returning to its historical location. I am pleased that the work will now be preserved for the public and that the Cultural Foundation of the States was able to support the Landesmuseum Kunst & Kultur Oldenburg in its collection policy of reassembling the original collection of modern art that has distinguished the museum since its founding.”
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