Albert Stagura, Reissender Gebirgsfluss

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‘Mountain River’ (‘Reißender Gebirgsfluss’)

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BIOGRAPHY: ALBERT STAGURA

Albert Stagura, ‘Loferer Ache a.d. Regel’. GDK 1938, room 39.

Left: Albert Stagura, postcard, ‘Sonniger Heideweg im Herbst‘. GDK 1943, room 14.
Right: Albert Stagura, postcard, ‘Septembermorgen am Chiemsee‘ (‘A morning in September at the Chiemsee‘). GDK 1938, room 37. Sold for 2.500 Reichsmark to the Reichspostministerium.
 

Albert Stagura, ‘Friedliche Arbeit’ (‘Peacefull Work’). GDK 1940, room 39. Bought for 3.500 Reichsmark by SA-Obergruppenführr Wilhelm Brückner.

Albert Stagura, ‘Septembersonne’ (‘September-sun’). GDK 1941 room 19. Bought by Hitler for 5.000 Reichsmark. Size 175 x 158 cm.

Stagura in the Neue Reichskanzlei
Left: Albert Stagura, ‘Wolken überm Moor’ (‘Clouds above Moor’). GDK 1938 room 24. Bought by Hitler for 6.000 Reichsmark.
Right: Albert Stagura, ‘Aprilstimmung im Moor’ (‘April-sphere in the Moor’). GDK 1938 room 37. Bought by Hitler for 2.500 Reichsmark.
Both works were placed in the Neue Reichszkanzlei (‘für die Inneneinrichtung des Erweiterungsbaues der Reichskanzlei’). The paintings are on the 144-List, see below.
  

The ‘144- list’ with 144 paintings, sculptures and graphic works which were bought by Hitler in 1938; they were transported to Berlin and placed in the Neue Reichskanzlei under construction, which was completed in January 1939. The list of 144 works is not exhaustive. Hitler did buy more works at the GDK in 1938, and in later years, which were also placed in the Reichskanzlei.

At page 8 are listed the 2 works by Albert Stagura: ‘Wolken überm Moor’ and ‘Aprilstimmung im Moor’.

What happened to the art Hitler purchased at the Great German Art Exhibitions?
With his insatiable passion for collecting art, Hitler was the most important purchaser of works from the GDKs. Every year, several times, he visited the Haus der Deustchen Kunst. From 1937 to 1944 he bought in total 1316 works at the GDKs.
Hitler’s mass art purchases were mostly undertaken without a plan regarding the future location of the works. He only had a specific usage in mind from the start for a few of these works of art. The majority of the paintings and sculptures acquired at the GDKs faced an uncertain future. They were stored at the Haus der Deutschen Kunst until further notice (some were eventually taken to the Führerbau).
Below we describe the fate of a limited number of artworks which were – as an exception- given a special destination by Hitler:
1. 144 paintings, sculptures and graphic works were bought by Hitler in 1938; they were transported to Berlin and placed in the Neue Reichskanzlei under construction, which was completed in January 1939. The list of 144 works (in our possession) is not exhaustive. Hitler did buy more works at the GDK in 1938, and in later years, which were also placed in the Reichskanzlei.
2. In 1939 Hitler gave 10 works of art to the Jagdmuseum in Munich: works by Carl von Dombroswki, Ludwig Eugen, Felix Kupsch, Friedrich Reimann (5), Karl Wagner and Renz Waller.
3. A few pieces were used to decorate Hitler’s various offices and private residences; for example, Adolf Ziegler’s ‘Die Vier Elemente’ was famously placed over the fireplace in a salon of the Führerbau in Munich.
4. In April 1943 Hitler had 21 paintings from the GDK delivered to his Munich apartment in the Prinzregentenstrasse. This delivery included works by Anton Müller-Wischin, Franz Xaver Wolf, Freidrich Schüz, Hermann Urban, Ludwig Platzöder, Sep Happ and Sepp Meindl.
5. In 1939 Hitler bought two works, explicitly meant for his own personal use: ‘Beethoven’ by Josef Jurutka and ‘Bauernkrieg’ by Franz Xavier Wolf.

Left: Albert Stagura, ‘Chiemseeruhe‘ (‘Stillness oft he Chiemsee’). Displayed at the Grosse Münchener Kunstausstellung in the Glaspalast, 1929.
Right: Albert Stagura, ‘Loisachtal mit den Vorbergen’ (‘Loisachtal with Hills’). Displayed at the Grosse Münchener Kunstausstellung in the Glaspalast, 1919.
 

Left: Albert Stagura, ‘Ein silbergraue tag am Chiemsee’ (‘A silver-grey day at the Chiemsee’). Displayed at the Grosse Münchener Kunstausstellung in the Glaspalast, 1928.
Right: Albert Stagura, ‘Tauender Schnee’ (‘Melting snow’). Displayed at the Grosse Münchener Kunstausstellung in the Glaspalast, 1924.
 

Albert Stagura, ‘Sebstportrait’ (‘Selfportrait’). Created in 1918, size 41 x 31 cm. Sold by a German auction house in 2019.

Albert Stagura, the Chiemsee-painter
Albert Stagura (1866-1947) was not a revolutionary in painting, but a Chiemsee-painter. He was a representative of the Munich School, a realist with a touch of impressionism. He studied at the Dresdner Academy with Friedrich Leon Pohle and Friedrich Preller. For years he was in the management and jury of the Munchener Glastpalast Exhibitions. He held the Bavarian title of professor and was rewarded with the Silver and Golden Medal for Art in Austria.
Around 1900 Stagura moved to Bayern where he had an atelier in Munich. At the age of 60 he discovered the Chiemsee (Chiem Lake) and for the next 20 years the Chiemsee area was the focus of his artistic work. He painted with oil, but also many of his works were in pastel. Albert Stagura went out into nature very frequently and he would proudly say that he could predict a weather change within half an hour. Often a fishing boat with men busy with fishing nets was the subject of his painting. On the surface they seem to all be the same scene. However, in the background one discovers the ever-changing clouds, the silver colour of the morning, the blue and green of an afternoon föhn-wind, the various reflections in the water and the interplay between wind and water. With hundreds of pastel colours he caught the atmospheric changes that occur during the day. After the bombing of his studio on Swanerthalerstrasse in Munich (where many of his paintings were destroyed) Stagura moved to Gstadt, a city he knew from his summer holidays.
At an occasion later in 1947, in his last year of life, he was sitting under some huge lime-trees near Chiemsee when he said to his wife: ‘I would like to become as old as the trees, but only as long as I can paint’. The boat depicted in several of his paintings was consequently the same; Stagura bought it once for 10 Mark. But the landscape, the lake, the sky and the weather were always different.
Stagura painted not political motives, but was well liked by the Nazi top officials. He had 17 paintings displayed at the Great German Art Exhibitions. All of them depicted mountains, rivers and clouds near the Chiemsee or were scenes with fishermen on a small wooden boat. Three of his paintings, one with a price of 6,000 Reichsmark, were bought by Adolf Hitler: ‘Wolken überm Moorm’ (‘Clouds above Moor’, GDK 1938 room 24), ‘Aprilstimmung im Moor’ (‘April-sphere in the Moor’, GDK 1938 room 37) and ‘Septembersonne’ (‘September-sun’, GDK 1941 room 19). ‘Wolken überm Moor’ and ‘Aprilstimmung im Moor’ were placed in the neue Reichskanzlei (für die Inneneinrichtung des Erweiterungsbaues der Reichskanzlei’). The paintings are on the ‘144-List’. Other buyers at the GDK were Reichsminister Joseph Goebbels (2), Reichsminister Wilhem Rust, SA Obergruppenführer Wilhelm Brückner, the City of Munich and other state- and NSDAP-organisations.
Albert Stagura died in 1947 in Gstadt (Chimesee).
Deutsches Historisches Museum is in the possession of ‘Septembersonne’  (‘September-sun’, GDK 1941 room 19, bought by Hitler for 5.000 Reichsmark). Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen owns ‘Oktoberstimmung’ by Stagura.