Finding aid for the Alois Schardt papers and photographs
Descriptive Summary
Title: Alois Schardt papers and photographs
Date (inclusive): 1917-1983, undated (bulk 1917-1956)
Number: 910172
Creator/Collector:
Schardt, Alois J. (Alois Jakob), 1889-1955
Physical Description:
6.5 Linear Feet
(18 boxes)
Repository:
The Getty Research Institute
Special Collections
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles 90049-1688
reference@getty.edu
URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10020/askref
(310) 440-7390
Abstract: This collection is comprised of
photographs, negatives, lectures, transcripts, correspondences, and other ephemera
documenting Alois Schardt's career as a German art historian and museum director before,
during, and after World War II. After being forced from job at the National Gallery of
Berlin in 1933, Schardt was censored by the Nazi party. He left for the United States in
1940 with his photographs. The bulk of this collection consists of photographs and
negatives, primarily of Christian art and architecture. His photographs for publication can
also be found in the collection. Also present are lectures in English, transcripts of
Schardt's published and unpublished manuscripts, and personal and professional
correspondence.
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Language: Collection material is in German
Biographical / Historical Note
Alois Schardt was a German art historian and museum director. He was already serving as
director of the Moritzburg Museum in Halle in 1933 when he was appointed director of the
National Gallery in Berlin, replacing Ludwig Justi, who was forced from his job by the
Nazis. Schardt was dismissed within months, and his newly-hung galleries, like those of
Justi before him, were not opened to the public. Later he was forbidden to teach at the
Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, to speak in public, or to publish. He left for
the United States in 1940, bringing some installation photographs with him.
Administrative Information
Access
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Publication Rights
Preferred Citation
Alois Schardt papers and photographs, 1917-1983, undated, The Getty Research Institute, Los
Angeles, Accession no. 910172.
http://hdl.handle.net/10020/cifa910172
Processing History
Cataloging (brief) completed January 29, 1993 by JMD.
Cataloging (full) completed August 19, 1994 by JMD.
Scope and Content of Collection
Schardt's papers document part of the Nazis' movement against Expressionist art in the
1930s. Included are approximately 30 photographs of galleries he had hung in the
Kronprinzen-Palais and the Moritzburg Museum, and roughly 100 photographs of works by
Expressionist artists such as Willi Baumeister, Paul Klee, and Wilhelm Lembruck. Some of
these photographs, like that of Klee's
Wintergarten, may be
unique images of a now lost or destroyed work. The papers also contain correspondence
related to his dismissal from the National Gallery Berlin, as well as manuscripts of his
published and unpublished writing on many aspects of art history and art criticism. Also
present is limited professional and personal correspondence up until his death in 1955, and
a wide variety of photographs of Christian art and architecture (mainly German) from the
Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque periods.
Arrangement
Arranged in three series: , , .Series I.
Correspondence and ephemera
Series II. Writings and lectures
Series III. Photographs and negatives
Indexing Terms
Subjects - Corporate Bodies
National-Galerie (Germany).
Städtisches Moritzburg-Museum.
Subjects - Topics
National socialism and art
Christian art and symbolism -- Germany.
Art museum directors -- Germany.
Expressionism (Art) -- Germany.
Genres and Forms of Material
Photographs, Original
Negatives -- 20th Century.
Contributors
Schardt, Alois J. (Alois Jakob), 1889-1955
Rust, Bernhard
Barlach, Ernst, 1870-1938.
Baumeister, Willi, 1889-1955.
Feininger, Lyonel, 1871-1956.
Gurlitt, Hildebrand.
Justi, Ludwig
Lehmbruck, Wilhelm
Marc, Maria
Nierendorf, Karl
Klee, Paul
Series I.
Correspondence and ephemera,
1917-1963, 1983, undated
Physical Description:
0.42 Linear
Feet
(1 box)
Scope and Content Note
Series I. Correspondence and ephemera: approximately 60 items, including carbon copies
of Schardt's outgoing correspondence, detailing his increasing difficulties with the
Nazi government; and correspondence with Bernhardt Rust (Reich minister of science,
education, and popular culture) and the bureaucrats in Halle, especially from 1933 to
1940. Includes four letters from Ernst Barlach (1922-1934). A few letters date from
after the war and are from others involved in the controversies surrounding
Expressionist art, such as the dealers Hildebrand Gurlitt and Karl Nierendorf. Also
included is correspondence with Franz Marc's widow Maria; letters covering Schardt's
difficulties finding employment in the Los Angeles area (1940-1956), where he had
settled with his family upon emigrating; and letters regarding his involvement in the
local arts community.
Arrangement
Arranged by topic.
box 1, folder 1
Official correspondence enumerated in inventory,
1917-1956
box 1, folder 2
Official correspondence,
1931-1936
box 1, folder 3
Official papers and translations,
1934-1946, 1956
box 1, folder 4
Professional correspondence and papers,
1934-1946, 1983
box 1, folder 5
Correspondence and announcements regarding teaching and
lecturing,
1942-1955
box 1, folder 6
Correspondence regarding Friedrich Loos paintings,
1934-1960
box 1, folder 7
Personal correspondence,
1933-1952
box 1, folder 8
Ernst Barlach letters received,
1922-1934, 1963
box 1, folder 9
Brochures for Bildungsanstalt Hellerau
undated
box 1, folder 10
Newspaper clippings,
Entartete
Kunst
,
1937
box 1, folder 11
Janet Flanner's
New Yorker article on Hitler's
looting of art,
1947
box 1, folder 12
American Society for Aesthetics,
1948-1950
Series II.
Writings and lectures,
1921-1967
Physical Description:
2.92 Linear
Feet
(7 boxes)
Scope and Content Note
Series II, Writings and lectures: contains much of Schardt's published writing,
including fourteen pieces for the
Deutsche Allgemeine
Zeitung
(1921); offprints of articles, manuscripts, typescripts, and
preparatory material for his books
Franz Marc and
Das Initial. Unpublished materials include two versions of his
dissertation on human proportion in Egyptian and Greek sculpture; a typescript for a
book on the principal characteristics of German art (1933); a manuscript and typescript
for a book on Lyonel Feininger, and an (unfinished?) manuscript and typescript for a
book on German art from 1900 to 1940. Schardt also wrote approximately eighty occasional
or course lectures in English on a wide variety of topics in the arts.
Arrangement
Arranged by topic.
Photographs of illustrations
Die Kunst des Mittelalters
undated
Franz Marc materials,
1936-1967, undated
box 2, folder 4
Maria Marc correspondence,
1946-1955
Lyonel Feininger material,
undated
box 5, folder 3
Proposed dissertation,
1917
box 5, folder 5
Notes on humor, bibliography
undated
Published Materials,
1900-1940, undated
box 7, folder 2
Articles on artists and criticism,
undated
box 6, folder 5
Eingruppierung der Jazzmusik,
undated
box 7, folder 1
German Art (typescript),
1900-1940
box 6, folder 4
Project for tour for German art books
1939
box 6, folder 2-3
Wesensmerkmale der deutschen Bildenden
Kunst
,
1933
Lectures and photographs,
1947, undated
box 8, folder 1
"Art Under the Nazis,"
undated
box 7, folder 8
"What Is Art?"; "Art and the Single Man,"
1947
box 8, folder 2
"What Makes Art Expressive,"
undated
box 8, folder 3-5
Various subjects,
undated
box 8, folder 6
Miscellaneous notes and transcripts,
undated
Series III.
Photographs and negatives,
1936-1950, undated
Physical Description:
4.17 Linear
Feet
(10 boxes)
Scope and Content Note
Series III contains images of the galleries in the Kronprinzen-Palais of the National
Gallery, the Moritzburg Museum, and of individual Expressionist works already described.
Includes approximately 1,500 photographs of Christian art and architecture, much of it
unidentified and unsorted, principally of churches and their decoration, paintings and
plastic arts, and Medieval manuscripts. Also includes approximately 700 negatives
matching some of the photographs.
Arrangement
Arranged by topic.
box 8, folder 8-9
Berlin exhibition installation photographs,
undated
Photographs--General
1936, 1950, undated
box 9, folder 5
Christian art: cathedrals, basilicas (exterior and interior),
undated
box 9, folder 7
Christian art: mignonettes,
undated
box 9, folder 6
Christian art: paintings, frescoes,
undated
box 9, folder 2
Expressionist art, 20th century (not Berlin or Halle),
undated
box 9, folder 4
Franz Marc Ausstellung,
1936 August 19
box 9, folder 8
Glass plate - G. Marcks,
undated
box 9, folder 3
H. J. Kallman photographs and letter,
1950
box 9, folder 1
Moritzburg Museum, Halle,
undated
box 13
Painting, drawings, etchings, architecture, sculpture, and illuminated
manuscript pages,
undated
Photographs of architecture
undated
box 11, folder 1
Architecture, 12th - 16th century
box 11, folder 2
Architecture, architectural elements (exterior and interior), 12th - 16th
century
box 10, folder 1
Architecture, cathedrals, basilicas, schloß, rathaus (exterior and
interior), 12th - 16th century
Photographs of cathedrals
undated
box 12, folder 2
Cathedral interior, decorative objects, paintings, sculpture
box 17, folder 1
Paintings, illuminated manuscripts, tapestries
box 17, folder 2
Sculpture, carved objects
box 16, folder 1
Sculpture, decorative objects
