The Wacker forgeries: a catalogue Stefan Koldehoff, Van Gogh Museum Journal 2002 - DBNL

fig 1
Otto Wacker (far right) on trial in Berlin

The Wacker forgeries: a catalogue
Stefan Koldehoff

Many of the so-called ‘Wacker forgeries’ - which until now have not been reliably catalogued - were evidently painted by Otto Wacker's (fig. 1) brother, the painter Leonhard Wacker, although he himself never confessed to his involvement. Among the items found by the police when they searched his studio was a study (fig. 2) after Van Gogh's frequently painted motif, Wheatfield with reaper.Ga naar voetnoot1 This study, here published for the very first time, was examined on behalf of the Berlin police by Ludwig Thormaehlen, curator at the Nationalgalerie in Berlin, who wrote in his report: ‘As far as I am concerned, there is no doubt whatsoever that this piece, like the “study” for the “self-portrait,” is a preparatory study, i.e. a colour trial, for the corresponding Van Gogh forgery (De la Faille no. 523). The “study” is painted on a canvas that has already been used before, probably for a hurriedly executed preliminary sketch of a still life that was subsequently washed off. Still visible on the left-hand side is a circle in which the word “orange” has been written, and also the colour which was used to fill in the background. The canvas has been tacked several times, as can be seen from the holes along its top and bottom. The colours presumed by Wacker to have been used for an original Van Gogh wheatfield have been applied, without much preliminary drawing work, with powerful brushstrokes in approximately six colour units. Just as with the “study” for, or after, the self-portrait, it was a reproduction and not an original that Leonhard Wacker had in front of him as he painted the canvas. He may have had at his disposal either printed or handwritten details of the colours of the original (De la Faille no. 628). The colours of the Wacker study have nothing to do with Van Gogh's original colours.’Ga naar voetnoot2

On the other hand, various forgeries hitherto attributed to Wacker seem not to have been commissioned by him, although he may possibly have been involved in their sale. The still life Vase with asters (F 590) was already listed in an inventory of the Von der Heydt collection in 1918.Ga naar voetnoot3 There is no evidence that Otto Wacker was interested in Van Gogh at that time. Whilst Wacker's name had indeed been mentioned in connection with a forgery after Franz von Stuck as early as 1914, his interest in the art trade during those early years seems to have been confined to promoting the sale of works by his father, an amateur painter. As to the point in time when Wacker actually began his career as a professional art dealer, there are several differing accounts. Without indicating his source, Walter Feilchenfeldt writes: ‘Otto Wacker had tried various professions before becoming an art dealer in 1925. He succeeded in establishing a sound reputation with dealers and experts in the Van Gogh field, and De la Faille and Meier-Graefe constantly stressed their faith in his integrity.’Ga naar voetnoot4 Grete Ring, one of Paul Cassirer's closest business partners, puts the time much earlier: ‘One day, a youthful dancer, Olindo Lowael [sic], alias Otto Wacker, the son of a Düsseldorf painter, made his appearance in the Berlin art trade. At first - it was around 1922 - he offered relatively small deal-

ers comparatively modest pieces, works of the Dutch and Düsseldorf schools, and sometimes major works, an Israëls, an Achenbach, Schuch, Uhde, Trübner. [...] at the turn of the year 1925/26, W. suddenly appeared with a number of paintings by Vincent van Gogh, which he sold, one after the other, to Berlin art dealers. [...] at the end of 1926, W. moved into an imposing bel étage in one of the most elegant pre-war houses in Viktoriastraße.’Ga naar voetnoot5

The year 1922 does in fact seem a little too early, as Otto Wacker, alias Olinto Lovael, was still performing as a dancer in his native city of Düsseldorf in the winter of 1923/24.Ga naar voetnoot6 During the appeal proceedings Wacker himself is quoted as saying: ‘I gave up dancing around 1924, as my business with the Van Gogh pictures was expanding excessively.’Ga naar voetnoot7 Wacker terminated his interest in Kratkowski's hackney carriage business in 1925.Ga naar voetnoot8 However, there is no evidence that he was already dealing in art in 1918, this being the year in which Vase with asters, attributed to Wacker himself, is first documented.

Likewise dubious is the Wacker provenance for the painting The small garden (F 442), which in 1925 was owned by the Elberfeld collector Julius Schmits.Ga naar voetnoot9 As Schmits and Von der Heydt (together with their wives) used to travel together regularly from Elberfeld to Paris in order to buy works of art, and both F 590 and F 442 had been offered for sale at the Galerie Eugène Blot,Ga naar voetnoot10 it is not improbable that these two paintings were purchased there at the same time, shortly before the First World War, and therefore never came into contact with Otto Wacker.Ga naar voetnoot11

Another still life, Vase with flowers (F 325), is known to have existed in EnglandGa naar voetnoot12 since the beginning of the 1920s before being auctioned at Christie's in London in 1927.Ga naar voetnoot13 Here, again, Wacker's interest in Van Gogh does not date back far enough.

The painting Peasant with fork (F 685), which is definitely of Wacker provenance,Ga naar voetnoot14 manifests strong stylistic similarities to the painting Peasant walking along the fields (fig. 3a), the first owner of which was said to have been the painter Remy Matifas (1846-1896) of Batignolles near Paris.Ga naar voetnoot15 So far nobody has been able to give a convincing answer to the question as to why only one of the two paintings (F 685) had been offered for sale by Wacker, while the other was never once supposed to have passed through his hands.

Walter Feilchenfeldt has pointed out that works presumed to have been painted by Leonhard Wacker and offered

fig. 2
Leonard Wacker, (Study for) Wheatfield with reaper, Berlin, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz

for sale by his brother Otto are generally direct copies after original works the two brothers had seen, either at their owners' homes or in exhibitions, or purchased as reproductions.Ga naar voetnoot16 A particularly apt example is the authentic painting Olive trees (F 710 JH 1856), which at that time belonged to the collection of the Van Gogh translator Margarethe Mauthner. Shortly after taking this painting in commission from the Galerie Matthiesen, Otto Wacker was himself able to offer as many as three copies of the same motif in his gallery. Almost every Wacker forgery can be similarly traced back to an original that was either directly accessible to Otto Wacker and his brother or available to them in the form of a reproduction. However, for the aforementioned

fig 3a
Peasant walking along the fields (F 699a)

paintings Vase with asters and Peasant walking along the fields there were no such originals in existence. The Wuppertal painting Vase with asters (F 590) is a free adaptation of the motifs of the Sunflower series, the sunflowers having been replaced by white and pink asters against a yellow background. It seems unlikely, however,

fig. 3b
Vincent van Gogh, Morning: Peasant couple going to work (after Millet) (F 684 JH 1880), Otto Krebs Collection (at present St Petersburg, Hermitage)

that a direct copy was made after one of the five comparable Sunflower versions or after one of the reproductions of these paintings, as the dark upper half of the vase and the shadow cast by the vase do not appear on any of them.

The Peasant walking along the fields (fig. 3a) and the Peasant with fork are paraphrases of Van Gogh's Millet interpretation Morning: Peasant couple going to work (after Millet) (fig. 3b).Ga naar voetnoot17 Finally, The small garden cites the upper left corner of Garden with flowers (F 578 JH 1538), leaving out the church as well as the larger house in the original; it is thus a pastiche. In this case also no direct original exists.

Catalogue

The following catalogue is based on several sources, some of which have never before been evaluated in connection with the Wacker forgeries. In addition to the details of provenance given in the 1928, 1938 and 1970 editions of De la Faille's catalogue raisonné (a work which must, however, be treated with some caution) and the studies by Walter Feilchenfeldt (1988/89),Ga naar voetnoot18 these sources consist primarily of the records kept at the Zentralarchiv der Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin.Ga naar voetnoot19 In January 1929, Ludwig Justi exhibited the Kröller-Müller collection at the Nationalgalerie, Berlin. He also exhibited, by way of comparison, several Wacker forgeries, keeping a further selection in his office for viewing by arrangement.Ga naar voetnoot20 The correspondence with the then-owners of these works has been preserved, though it has not been possible to match the works and their owners in every case. Letters were evidently written to Carl Sternheim of Uttwil, near Zurich, and Thomas Brown, Viktoriastraße 35, Berlin, as owners of non-authentic works, but it has not been possible to identify their pictures.Ga naar voetnoot21 Marie von Mendelssohn, on the other hand, owned an authentic work - Wheatfield with cypresses (F 717 JH 1756) - which she loaned to the Nationalgalerie for purposes of comparison.Ga naar voetnoot22 The Berlin dealer Paul Glaser made a statement during the trial of the Hamburg collector Elsa Wolf-Essberger against her former picture dealer Hugo Perls, confirming that he and Perls had ‘in the course of several years’ acquired ‘about 8 van Goghs from Wacker.’ They had not been taken in commission but bought straight out. Indeed, Perls owned 11 of the Wacker fakes. It was only possible to identify one of them (F 616) as the joint property of Glaser and Perls.

Other names of owners have been sourced from contemporary newspaper and magazine reports on the Wacker affair and the ensuing trial. Reference in these reports to the fact that Wacker sold two works to the Paris and New York-based Wildenstein Gallery could be verified only in the case of one of the paintings (F 527a). No documentary evidence could be found concerning the first owners of the paintings F 539a, F 625a and F 691 named by Wacker himself during his trial. Like Wacker's frequently cited ‘Private collection, Switzerland,’ they, too, are in all probability fictitious. For this reason, in what follows those provenances for which there is no definitive evidence are stricken through, while those probably invented by Wacker himself are given a question mark.

For the works in public collections, the respective museums have furnished details on their provenances.Ga naar voetnoot23 As regards the only two paintings to have been put up for auction, the auctioneers concerned gave me access to their archives.Ga naar voetnoot24 I am also indebted to Ralph Jentsch, Capri, for having pointed out that the painting F 691 was given by the owner of the Galerie Matthiesen, Franz Zatzenstein, to one of his employees when he was forced to close the gallery due to Nazi rise to power. That employee, Gertrud Wolowski, must have believed the painting to be authentic, as after the Second World War she sometimes referred to it as her ‘nest egg.’ In 1977, her heirs noticed a label from the Cassirer gallery on the back of the frame, which reads: ‘Paul Cassirer/Van Gogh/Ausstellung/1928’. Walter Feilchenfeldt believes that this painting, together with F 418a, F 527a and F 625a, are the four works lent by Wacker to the Van Gogh exhibition at the Galerie Paul Cassirer that first arose suspicion and therefore began the whole Wacker affair.Ga naar voetnoot25

A
Works probably painted by Leonhard Wacker

F 710a / H - / FF 35 / JH -
Olive trees
Oil on canvas, 72 × 91 cm
Copy after F 710 JH 1856 (The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis)

B
Works probably not painted by Leonhard Wacker