Sophie Küppers

Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers (1891–1978), born Sophie Schneider, was a German art historian, patron of the avant-garde, author, and art collector.

Paul Klee - Swamp Legend - in the collection of the Munich's Lenbachhaus Museum, compensation finally paid to the family of Lissitzky-Küppers in 2015 after protracted legal action

She was the artistic director of the Kestner Society in Germany. In 1927 she moved to the Soviet Union and collaborated on a number of large-scale exhibition projects with her second husband, artist and designer El Lissitzky. She later wrote El Lissitzky: Life, Letters, Texts (1967). Before moving to the Soviet Union she loaned some thirteen works, including a Paul Klee painting, Swamp Legend, to the Provinzial Museum in Hanover. In 1937 the Nazis seized the loaned works from the museum as part of their "degenerate art" campaign. The Nazis sold the works abroad for foreign currency, and the Küppers-Lissitzky collection was dispersed throughout the world. In 1944, three years after Lissitzky died, Küppers was deported as an enemy foreigner to Novosibirsk, where she lived for the next thirty-four years.[1][2]

After several changes of ownership, the Klee painting (Swamp Legend) ended up in Munich's Lenbachhaus Museum, where in 2015 it was under protracted legal action from the heirs of Lissitzky-Küppers for its restitution.[3] An agreement was finally reached in 2017 for the Museum to retain the painting but for compensation (estimated at between €2–4 million, or $2.33–4.65 million) to be paid to the heirs of the original owner.[4]