| Genre | Painting |
| Materials | Oil on canvas |
| Size | 95 x 60 cm |
| Signature | signed and dated bottom right: RZ 1925 |
Research status
Provenance is established. The work does not qualify as a cultural asset extorted due to Nazi persecution.
Paintings with character
1925, the year when Richard Ziegler (1891–1992) painted “Girl with Jumping Jack”, was extremely eventful for the artist. He married his first wife, the painter Mathilde Rosenthal (1898–?), whom he had recently met on Capri. She was Max Liebermann’s great niece, and she persuaded Ziegler to leave his native town Pforzheim and move with her to her home city Berlin.
The move was combined with incipient professional success, because in February 1925 the prestigious Casper Gallery at Kurfürstendamm 233 had granted him a solo exhibition.
“At Casper’s we can discover a new artist: Richard Ziegler from Pforzheim. He is self-taught and undeniably has talent. The portraits he brings have character and painterly verve.”
in: Der Kunstwanderer. Halbmonatsschrift für Alte und Neue Kunst, für Kunstmarkt und Sammelwesen, 1st/2nd February issue 1925, p. 192
The Casper Gallery had championed modern art since 1897 and encouraged young artists until it closed in 1932. Felix Nussbaum (1904–1944) and Bruno Krauskopf (1892–1960) also had their first exhibitions there.
It is not clear whether “Girl with Jumping Jack” was up for sale at Casper’s. Nor do we know how long Ziegler held on to the painting after leaving his studio at Homburger Strasse 4 in Wilmersdorf in response to the Nazi takeover. From 1933 he lived in Croatia, then for a few months of 1936 in Paris and until 1961 in England. From 1963 he spent over twenty years in Mallorca.
Richard Ziegler at work on his oil painting “Two Women”, Berlin, 1928
Unknown photographer, Richard Ziegler at work on his oil painting “Two Women”, Berlin, 1928
© Cornelia Ziegler; Repro: Richard-Ziegler-Stiftung der Stadt Calw
Another painting from the Berlinische Galerie collection: Richard Ziegler, “Boy in a Sandpit”, 1926. A child portrait in the style of New Objectivity.
Richard Ziegler, Boy in a Sandpit, 1926
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2020; Repro: Kai-Annett Becker“It is time for me to move on. In Germany the prisons are too full of people like me. Night, silence, hide my paintings, go underground. Do sober sums, demand, haggle. Distrust everyone, wait for no one, work and watch out.”
Richard Ziegler, diary entry on 24 March 1933
When the Second World War was over, Richard Ziegler’s most important works were in the family’s possession in Pforzheim. A friend made arrangements to transfer them to nearby Calw in the late 1950s. In 1982 Ziegler handed over much of his œuvre to the Richard Ziegler Foundation he had set up there. One of these paintings was “Girl with Jumping Jack”. In 1986 it was sold to the Berlinische Galerie through the Berlin gallery Bodo Niemann, with the proceeds going to the foundation.
Richard Ziegler and his second wife Edith Lendt in exile in South Croydon near London, c. 1938
Unknown photographer, Richard Ziegler and his second wife Edith Lendt in exile in South Croydon near London, c. 1938
© Cornelia Ziegler; Repro Richard-Ziegler-Stiftung der Stadt Calw