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Description
‘Pandora’
Monumental painting (2,4 x 2 meter) displayed at the Great German Art Exhibition 1943, room 15.
Bought by the Gauleiter of Düsseldorf, Friedrich Karl Florian for 25.000 Reichsmark.
— displayed at the exhibition ‘Art in the Third Reich, Seduction and Distraction’, November 2023 – March 2024, Museum Arnhem, The Netherlands —
‘If man was shown as the dominator of nature, woman was shown as nature itself. She was the beauty of nature, or the playfulness of nature, and of course was as fertile as nature. She was shown over and over again in a state of ripeness; see the renderings of woman in myth by Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb….’ (‘Arts of the Third Reich’, Peter Adam)
This painting was displayed at the GDK 1943, room 15. The remains of a sticker on the back notes ‘Saal 15’ (room 15) of the Haus der Deutschen Kunst. It was bought at the GDK for 25,000 RM by the Gauleiter of Düsseldorf, Friedrich Karl Florian.
Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb also displayed a drawing named ‘Pandora’ in the GDK 1937 room 30. This drawing was bought for 300 Reichsmark by the New Reich Chancellery, but the location where it was hung is unknown.
In August 1945 the Allied forces discovered a large collection of art in Schloss Lichtenfels, at Dalwigkstal: ‘2,200 uncrated paintings, largely late 19th Century and contemporary, 9 crates of of paintings, and unknown quantities of plaster casts..’
According to an inventory list from the Headquaters Regional Military Government, Land Hessen-Nassau, dated 2 August 1945, a part of the collection belonged to Gauleiter Florian. Florian had, like other high placed Nazi’s and Nazi-institutions, stored valuable works of art in Schloss Lichtenfels for protection from Allied bombing raids. However, ‘Pandora’ by Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb was not found on the inventory list. In 1949 Florian was sentenced to six years in prison and fined 20.000 DM, because of his rank in the Nazi Party; he was released in 1951. His property was not confiscated, he could even sell his house for half a million DM to the Dresdner Bank.
Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, ‘Pandora’ (painting). Photo depicted in the ‘Süddeutsche Zeitung’ from June 26, 1943, on the occasion of the ‘Grossen Deutschen Kunstausstellung’, 1943 in Munich.
‘Pandora’ by Kalb, displayed at the GDK 1943 room 15.
| – condition | : II painting has been treated for wood worm |
| – size | : 241,5 x 200 cm |
| – signed | : under, in the middle |
| – type | : oil on wood |
| – misc. | : rests of sticker at the back from the GDK |
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BIOGRAPHY: FRIEDRICH WILHELM KALB
Monastery of Hohenfurt (Vyssi Brod), Czech Republic
At the end of WWII ‘Werden’ was, with 45 other paintings and 30 statues from Hitler’s private contemporary art collection -and other stolen art collections- hidden by the National Socialists in the Monastery of Hohenfurt (Vyssi Brod), near Linz in the Czech Republic. After the war, valuable art, such as pieces from the Mannheimer- and Rothschild collections, were confiscated by the U.S. Army and taken to the Munich Central Collection Point in an effort to return them to their original owners. Art works then considered as having no value, like contemporary German Nazi-art works, were left behind after the 1945 liberation of Czechoslovakia and ended up scattered across the country.
In 2012 sixteen paintings by German artists -that Adolf Hitler personally purchased during WWII- were found in various Czech institutions. Seven were discovered in the Zákupy Chateau, the site where items from confiscated castles, chateaus and private houses were gathered after the war. Seven other canvases were found at the convent of Premonstratensian Sisters in Doksany, near Prague. Two paintings were found at the Military Institute in Prague and at the Faculty of Law of Charles University in Prague. ‘Werden’ was found in Doksany. All the sixteen paintings are now in the possession of the ‘Czech National Institute for the Protection and Conservation of Monuments and Sites’. They will remain in the Czech Republic.
Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, ‘Werden’ (‘Values’). GDK 1943, room 1. Room 1 was the first room people saw when they visited the Haus der deutschen Kunst. In this room there was usually hung a portrait of Adolf Hitler. Artworks displayed in this room were considered to be of high value. The large painting was sold for 30,000 Reichsmark at the GDK.
In 1944 Kalb took part in the exhibition ‘Deutsche Künstler und die SS’ in Breslau and Salzburg: ‘Werden’ was depicted in the official exhibition catalogue.
The painting was found in 2012 at the convent of Premonstratensian Sisters in Doksany, near Prague (photo’s below).
‘The fight against the Giants, the knocking down of Anarchy and Underworld, the Victory of Power, the Light’
‘Werden’, depicted in the exhibition catalogue ‘Deutsche Künstler und die SS‘. The accompanying text reads: ‘Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb vergegenwärtigt in diesem Blatt gedankenreich den Kampf der Giganten, das Niederschlagen von Anarchie und Unterwelt, den Sieg des Starken, des Lichten‘, or ‘Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb represents here the fight against the Giants, the knocking down of Anarchy and Underworld, the Victory of Power, the Light‘.
Deutsche Künstler und die SS (‘German Artists and the SS‘)
‘Deutsche Künstler und die SS’ was an exhibition organized by the Reichsführer SS and the SS Supplementary Office of the Headquarter, held in the first quarter of 1944 in the Museum der Bildende Künste in Breslau. In total 589 works of art were displayed, of which 63 were depicted in the exhibition catalogue, published by Wilhelm Limpert Verlag in Berlin. The 72-pages catalogue had a prologue by SS Obergruppenführer Gottlob Berger and a prologue by Heinrich Himmler.
Three months later -from June to July 1944- the exhibition was held in the Alte Residenz in Salzburg (Salzburg Residenz Palace); a separate catalog was issued with 20 depictions.
Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, Tryptichon, ‘Verlieren, Finden, Suchen’ (‘Losing, Finding, Searching’). GDK 1942, room 25 (the right part of the triptychon was depicted in the exhibition catalogue). Bought by Hitler for 23.000 RM. Depicted in Die Kunst im Deutschen Reich, 1942, and in ‘Die Kunst für Alle’, 1942. In the possession of Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin.
Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, ‘Sommerfrischler’ (‘Summer-vacationeers’), drawing. GDK 1938, room 28. Depicted in the official GDK-catalogue of 1938, as well as in ‘Die Kunst im Dritten Reich‘, 1938.
Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, ‘Bad der Artemis’ (the Bath of Artemis’). GDK 1939, room 6. Bought by Hitler for 4.200 RM. Depictecd in ‘Bruckmanns Lexikon der Münchener Kunst’, 1993, page 444. In the possession of the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin.
Left: Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, ‘Insel II’ (‘Iland II’). GDK 1938, room 37. Bought by Hitler for 2.500 RM.
Right: Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, ‘Zweikampf’ (‘Duel’). GDK 1939, room 30. Depicted in the magazine ‘Jugend’, 1939.
Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, ‘Daphne’. GDK 1939, room 6. Bought by Hitler for 4.400 RM. In the possession of Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin. Displayed at the exhibition ‘Aufstieg und Fall der Moderne‘, Weimar, 1999.
Left: Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, ‘Im Wald’ (‘In the forrest’). GDK 1939, room 30. Also displayed at the Münchener Kunstausttellung 1938, Maximilianeum.
Right: Friedrich Wilhelm Klab, ‘Insel I’ (‘Iland I’). GDK 1938, room 37. Bought by Hitler for 2.500 RM.
‘Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, ‘Landschaft’ (‘Landscape’). GDK 1939 room 6. Bought by Hitler for 2.500 Reichsmark. Size 152 x 96 cm. In the possession of the Deutsches Historisches Museum, Berlin.
Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, ‘Begegnung I, II, III’ (‘The Encounter I, II, III’). Displayed at the Münchener Kunstausttellung 1939, Maximilianeum; depicted in the exhibition catalogue. Also depicted in ‘Das Bild’, June 1939.
Left: Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, ‘Der Fischer’ (‘The Fisherman’), drawing. Displayed at the Münchener Kunst, Sonderausstellungen, in the Neuen Pinakothek, Munich, January/ February 1935. Again displayed under the contrasting name ‘Der Feldherr’ (‘The General’) at the exhibition ‘Münchener Künstler’, Ausstellung in der Preussischen Akademie der Künste Berlin, May/June 1935. Depicted in both exhibition catalogues.
Right: Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, ‘Bildnis’ (‘Portrait’). Depicted in ‘Velhagen & Klasings’, Monatshefte, 1937. This painting was in the possesion of the ‘Städtische Galerie zu München’. Displayed under the name ‘Bildnis R.M.’ at the ‘Münchener Kunstausstellung Danzig’, 1941; depicted in the exhibition catalogue.
Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, ‘Portrait’, 1930. Size 53 x 73 cm. In private possession. With sticker on the back of the ‘Kunstausstellung der Münchener Künstlergenossenschaft’.
Left: Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, ‘Ariadne’. Displayed at the ‘Münchener Jahres Ausstellung 1937’, Neue Pinakothek. Depicted in ‘Das Bild’, 1937.
Right: Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, ‘Galathea’. Displayed at the ‘Grosse Münchener Kunstaustellung’, 1934, Neue Pinakothek-Glaspalast Ausstellung.
Left: Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, ‘Beowulf’. Depicted in ‘Das Bild’, 1937.
Right: Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, ‘Jäger am Bergsee’ (‘Hunter at Lake’). Depicted in ‘Das Bild’, 1937.
True German art, eternal and based in Ancient Greece and Roman style.
The art of the Third Reich was characterized by a style of Romantic realism based on classical models. Modern style was banned as degenerate. The Third Reich promoted paintings and sculptures that were narrowly traditional and that exalted the ‘blood and soil’ values of racial purity, militarism, and obedience. Ancient Greece was interpreted as a flowering of Aryan culture, as were the Romantics. Hitler saw classical Greek and Roman art as uncontaminated by Jewish influences. He was an admirer of imperial Rome, attracted to symbols that bridged successful empires of the past with this own Third Reich. Alfred Rosenberg, one of the most influential Nazi ideologists, claimed that: ‘from Aryan India came metaphysics, from classical Greece beauty, from Rome the discipline of statesmanship, and from Germany the world, the highest and most shining example of mankind.’ Hitler also favoured the neo-classic style in architecture. His favourite architects (besides Albert Speer) were Paul Troost, Friedrich Gilly and Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the nineteenth century masters of Prussian Classicism. Their works were seen as the noblest expression of German art, rooted in classical antiquity. Speer’s architectural plans for a complete reshaping of Berlin were also based on Roman principles. For Hitler, ‘art is not founded on time, but only on peoples.’ This explains well why Arno Breker and Josef Thorak sculpted Ancient Greek figures as the perfection of the German race in their separate works. Great names of the past were useful to lend authority to the Nazi-regime and to give it the conception of eternity. The element of ‘time’ was dismissed, and in a timeless sphere the Nazis did not categorize art in terms of past, present and future. As Adolf Hitler stated: ‘National-Socialist Germany, however, wants again a ‘German Art’, and this art shall and will be of eternal value, as are all truly creative values of people… Art as an expression of the essence of this being is an eternal monument.’
Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb, inspired by Nordic and Greek methology.
Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb (1889-1977), was born in Münich were his father and grandfather were bankers. He completed his studies in medicine and psychiatry in Berlin at the Kaiser-Wilhelm Institut; in 1916 he was promoted as Doctor of Medicine. Shortly thereafter, in 1919, he went to the Art Academy in Munich where he studied until 1921 under Carl Johann Becker-Gundahl. He settled at Rottach on the Tegernsee and, in 1928, he married for the second time. From 1937 to 1944 he lived in Munich.
Kalb’s style involves classical Nordic, Greek and Roman sceneries, based on legends, fairy tales and poems like the Edda, Beowulf, Sagas and the Nibelungen.
As member of the Münchener Kunstgenossenschaft’, from 1921 onwards Kalb frequently exhibited drawings and paintings at the Grosse Münchener Kunstausstellung in the Glaspalast. Later, in 1938 he also exhibited also in the Münchener Kunstausttellung, Maximilianeum.
In the Grosse Deutsche Kunstausttellungen Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb was represented with 19 paintings, ten of which were bought by Hitler. ‘Werden’ was sold for the considerable amount of 30,000 RM and ‘Pandora’ for 25,000 RM to the Gauleiter of Düsseldorf, Friedrich Karl Florian.
In the first half year of 1944 Kalb took part in the exhibition ‘Deutsche Künstler und die SS’ in the ‘Museum der Bildende Künste’ in Breslau and in the ‘Alte Residenz’ in Salzburg. ‘Werden’ was depicted in the official Breslau-exhibition catalogue, with the accompanying text: ‘Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb vergegenwärtigt in diesem Blatt gedankenreich den Kampf der Giganten, das Niederschlagen von Anarchie und Unterwelt, den Sieg des Starken, des Lichten‘, or ‘Friedrich Wilhelm Kalb represents here the fight against the Giants, the knocking down of Anarchy and Underworld, the Victory of Power, the Light‘.
Later in 1944 Kalb’s studio was bombed and almost all of his works were destroyed. At the end of the war Kalb moved from Munich to Rottach-Egern where he lived until his death in 1977.
Kalb’s GDK-works which were bought by Hitler, ‘Daphne’ (GDK 1939, room 6), ‘Bad der Artemis’ (GDK 1939, room 6), ‘Landschaft’GDK 1939, room 6) and ‘Verlieren, Finden, Suchen’ (GDK 1942, room 24), are in the possession of the Deutsches Historiches Museum. The Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen owns ‘Frühjahr’ and ‘Landschaft’. After World War II Kalb displayed again works -mainly landscapes- in the Haus der Kunst and at exhibitions of the Münchener Künstler-Genossenschaft.
‘Daphne’ was displayed at the exhibition ‘Aufstieg und Fall der Moderne‘, Weimar, 1999.
At the end of WWII Kalbs work ‘Werden’ was, with 44 other paintings and 30 statues from Hitler’s private contemporary art collection (and other stolen art collections), hidden by the National Socialists in the Monastery of Hohenfurt (Vyssi Brod), near Linz in the Czech Republic. After the war, valuable art, such as pieces from the Mannheimer- and Rothschild collections, were confiscated by the U.S. Army and taken to the Munich Central Collection Point in an effort to return them to their original owners. Art works then considered as having no value, like contemporary German Nazi-art works, were left behind after the 1945 liberation of Czechoslovakia and ended up scattered across the country. In 2012 sixteen paintings by German artists – that Adolf Hitler personally purchased during WWII – were found in various Czech institutions. Seven were discovered in the Zákupy Chateau in the Czech Republic. After the war the Zákupy Chateau was the site where items from confiscated castles, chateaus and private houses were gathered. Seven other artworks were found at the convent of Premonstratensian Sisters in Doksany, near Prague. Two others were found at the Military Institute in Prague and at the Faculty of Law of Charles University in Prague. ‘Werden’ was found in Doksany. The painting is now in the possession of the ‘Czech National Institute for the Protection and Conservation of Monuments and Sites’. It will remain in the Czech Republic.