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Lost. Found. Returned.
This exhibition has ended.
Traces an 1892 Otto Greiner drawing marked lost by a Dresden museum after WWII, its rediscovery at the Getty Research Institute, and its impending return to Dresden.
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On the back of the drawing, in faint, half-erased pencil, someone wrote Греинер: Greiner, in Cyrillic. Dresden's researchers recognised it at once, and it pointed to Soviet hands after the war.
Otto Greiner drew this nude man from behind, leaning on a wall, in 1892. Dresden's Kupferstich-Kabinett bought it in 1894 and listed it as lost after World War II. It resurfaced in Berlin in 2001 and reached the Getty with a Los Angeles collector's gift. The show traces that route through archival records, a video on finding lost art, and an audio station of interviews with the Dresden researchers. You end up hunting for one stray ink droplet, the detail that matched the sheet to a 1900 catalogue reproduction.
The curators say it's about what was known and when, not how the drawing looks. It's the drawing's first public showing and closes 18 October, before it goes back to Dresden. Entry is free with a timed reservation; parking is paid. Labels are in English and Spanish.
Look for
Standing Male Nude from the Back, 1892
Look for a man seen from behind, cropped at the torso and ringed by dark shadow, his left arm hung over a ledge, with a smaller repeat of the torso beside him.
The ink spot
A tiny stray droplet of ink on the sheet, the accidental fingerprint that let researchers match it to the 1900 Dresden catalogue reproduction.
The Cyrillic inscription
Faint, partly erased pencil letters in the upper left of the back spell Greiner in Russian, the clue that points to Soviet trophy brigades.
The researchers' audio station
Recorded interviews with the two Dresden scholars who traced the drawing to Los Angeles, explaining how they did it.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Going Solo
- Locals Who've Seen It All
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You want art to look at: the curators focus on provenance research, not the drawing's visual qualities.
Also at Getty Center
On now nearby
Image credits
4
- Getty CenterCarol M. Highsmith / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
- Sculpted Portraits from Ancient Egypt© The Trustees of the British Museum. All rights reserved
- Stories from the Library: The Mirror of the MoonCourtesy of The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens
- The Egyptian Book of the DeadCourtesy of Getty Villa