Jena, April 13, 2026. A significant historical find enriches the city’s art collection: A lithograph by the expressionist Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, lost during the Nazi era, has returned to Jena. The work unexpectedly appeared on the art market and was secured for the city.
- Event: Return of a lost artwork to the Kunstsammlung Jena
- Artist: Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (Expressionism)
- Special feature: Double-sided printed lithograph
- Motif: Botho Graef (front) and Hugo Biallowons (back)
- Financing: Acquisition with the support of several foundations
A piece of city and art history
The rediscovered work is a lithograph that is of both historical and local interest. On the front, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner portrayed the art collector, archaeologist, and close friend Botho Graef. The back shows Hugo Biallowons, Graef’s partner. The unexpected discovery on the open art market offered the city of Jena the rare opportunity to reclaim this piece of its own history. Several foundations pooled their financial resources to enable the purchase for the Kunstsammlung Jena.
Loss during the Nazi era
The lithograph is not just any work, but belongs to an extensive donation that Kirchner left to the city of Jena in 1918. This originally comprised around 260 works. The collection met its tragic fate during the National Socialist era. A large part of the expressionist works were defamed as “degenerate art” (entartete Kunst) at the time, confiscated, and subsequently lost. With the current purchase, a cycle of loss lasting over eight decades has come to a close, at least for this one work.
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880–1938) was a co-founder of the famous artist group “Die Brücke” and is one of the most influential figures of German Expressionism. He maintained a special relationship with Jena, which was significantly shaped by the art historian Botho Graef. Graef was one of Kirchner’s most important patrons. After Graef’s early death, Kirchner donated an extensive collection of his works to the Jenaer Kunstverein in 1918 in his memory – the foundation of the so-called Botho-Graef-Stiftung. The wave of confiscations by the National Socialists in 1937 represented an unprecedented loss for the Jena art collection, in which hundreds of irreplaceable avant-garde masterpieces were torn from the city’s holdings.
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Lost Kirchner artwork returns to Jena
Transparency note: This article was created automatically, editorially reviewed, and expanded with AI support.