Kulturstiftung der Länder (1): works of art - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1999 - 220 Pfennig

Founded on 4 June 1987 by the prime ministers of the (then still) eleven federal states, the Cultural Foundation of the Länder took up its work on 1 April 1988. Their most important task is the preservation and promotion of art and culture of national rank. Mainly by the financial participation in the acquisition of important works of art and documents of our culture. So far, the Cultural Foundation has invested over 100 million marks in such purchases. The total value of the works of art thus preserved amounts to almost 500 million marks. Essential aspects of the foundation's work are the recovery of works of art for public presentation and the prevention of the fragmentation of estates. Representative of this is the second of the two selected for 1999 brand motifs: Wilhelm Lehmbruck (1881-1919) sculpture "head of a thinker" was created in 1918. Five years later acquired by the Municipal Art Collection Chemnitz, she fell in 1937 the National Socialist iconoclasm of "degenerate art" Victims, was confiscated and sold at a ridiculous price. In 1996, the "head of a thinker" was acquired again for Chemnitz at a London auction. Thus, one of Lehmbruck's last major works has returned to the place where she has been missing for more than 60 years.