Raoul Hausmann

This work is included in the Provenance Research Project, which investigates the ownership history of works in MoMA's collection.

1918-19 – ?, Raoul Hausmann, Berlin
[Possibly with Hannah Höch, Berlin]
By November 17, 1936 – 1962, Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart (1899–1962), Berlin, Zurich, and Amsterdam [1]
1962 – at least 1974, Ilse Vordemberge-Gildewart, Amsterdam, Stuttgart, and Jona (near Rapperswil, Switzerland), inherited from her husband Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart
c. 1974 – 1982, Annely Juda Fine Art, London
1982 – 2018, Merrill C. Berman, Rye, New York, purchased from Annely Juda Fine Art
2018, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, purchased from Merrill C. Berman

[1] In a letter from Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart to Alfred Barr, dated June 30, 1936 (held at MoMA), Vordemberge-Gildewart writes that he found in his collection two original Hausmann works since Barr’s visit to his studio and their visit to Hannah Höch. In a subsequent letter to Barr, dated November 17, 1936 (held at MoMA), Vordemberge-Gildewart lists the collages he sent to Barr (for potential loan to the 1936 MoMA exhibition Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism), including three works by Hausmann from Vordemberge-Gildewart’s collection. In his letter, Vordemberge-Gildewart highlights “the very important sheet for the first page of the unfortunately unpublished book ‘Dadaco,’” adding that he received this information from Hannah Höch. This work corresponds to Hausmann’s Synthetic Cinema of Painting.

In a letter from Raoul Hausmann to Hannah Höch, dated March 15, 1950 (held at the Berlinische Galerie), Hausmann states that Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart told him in Paris in 1939 that he had acquired a “montage of cigar bands on Scottish silk” at auction a few years earlier. In a letter to Ilse Vordemberge-Gildewart, dated February 8, 1965 (held at the Musée d'art contemporain de Haute-Vienne - Château de Rochechouart), Hausmann repeats this claim. In another letter from Raoul Hausmann to Ilse Vordemberge-Gildewart, dated January 29, 1966 (held at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin), Hausmann recalls that he entrusted the sculptor Paul Hamann with some of his Dada works for safekeeping in Paris in the summer of 1935 but could not say anymore if the “collage with cigar bands” was among them.To date, no evidence has been found to confirm that the work was sold at auction or that it was in the possession of Paul Hamann; this information is therefore omitted from the provenance text.

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