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The fantastic Helene Anderson collection of photos which included works by Man Ray, Moholy-Nagy, El Lissitsky, Haussmann and Rodchenko sold by Sotheby's on May 2, 1998 in fact belonged to Kurt Kirchbach a member of the German Nazi party in the 1930's.
This was the most exciting sale of photos in the history of the art market and Sotheby's catalogue mentioned that Helene Anderson (1891-1970) had started her collection with photographic works already assembled by her parents.
Nobody knew who was Helene Anderson who had gathered the most remarkable works of the first third of this century between 1920 and 1932. The sale realised almost US $ 3 million which was meant to be paid to Helene Anderson's son.
A few months later, the Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung revealed in January 1998 that the sale was a piece of trickery and that the real collector was Kurt Kirchbach. In fact, some of the photos, notably by Hill and Anderson, two British photographers of the 1840's, had been acquired by Hildebrand Gurlitt, head of the Zwickau Museum during the late 1920's. Gurlitt later sold them to Kirchbach, an industrialist from Dresden who started his collection at 38. Gurlitt and Kirchbach had been impressed by the exhibition
« Film und Foto » organised in Stuttgart in 1929 and the latter, who had a collection of Expressionist painters, soon bought photographic works for almost nothing (usually between 5 and 20 DM a piece). At that time, photos by Man Ray, Rodchenko or Moholy-Nagy were quite cheap compared with today's prices which sometimes can reach US $ 150,000 for one single proof.
Before the Nazis rose to power Gurlitt was dismissed from his post in 1930 for having defended Expressionist and modern art but found a new job as head of the Hamburg Art centre a year later. He notably organised an exhibition of the Kirchbach collection there in 1932 Gurlitt lost his job when Hitler became Reich Chancellor while Kirchbach joined the Nazi party. From then on, he had to hide his collection which included so-called « Bolshevik » and « degenerate » works.
After the war, Kirchbach settled in Dusseldorf and died in Friburg in 1967. His wife inherited the collection and died in a retirement home in Basel, Switzerland, in 1995, a year before the collection was back on the market.
Helene Anderson, who was married to a certain Emil Burdack, entered in possession of 221 photos out of the 600 assembled by Kirchbach which she received from Angelica Burdack who was in charge of the Basel retirement home. Now the question is to determine whether Mrs Kirchbach really donated the collection to Angelica Burdack without the knowledge of her sole heir, a lawyer based in Zurich.
The man who has revealed the piece of trickery is Herbert Molderings, a 49-year-old art historian who published several books in the field of modern photography. He sifted through newspapers and archives from the 1930's to discover who the real owner of the collection was.
In organising the sale, Sotheby's was apparently guilty of having dealt with that matter without due consideration. Molderings accused the auction house of having accepted without questioning the provenance of the collection, brought by the son of Helene Anderson.
Sotheby's answered that they were not compelled to ask documents from vendors. Still, it remains to determine how and when Helene Anderson and her son got hold of the collection and to clear up the mystery regarding the 380 or so missing photos. Sotheby's will probably invite the vendor to give some explanation in this respect.
The main risk following the May 2, 1997 sale lies in the prospect of a legal battle between the Kirchbach heir, the vendor and many private collectors and museums who purchased lots. As a result of this scandal Sotheby's image might be tarnished.
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