Lost After WWII, “Summer” Finally Returns to Poland
It may be the depths of winter in the UK, but in Poland “Summer” has returned!
A long-missing early 20th-century painting, Summer by Danish artist Bertha Wegmann, has been returned to the National Museum in Wrocław after disappearing shortly after World War II. Originally bought in 1906 and displayed in the Silesian Museum of Fine Arts, the painting was loaned to a girls’ school before the war and likely moved as part of Nazi social policy. After 1945, as Wrocław transitioned from German to Polish control, the work vanished from records.
For decades, Summer circulated quietly through the British, Israeli and Danish art markets, remaining unidentified due to the absence of surviving photographs. That changed last year when the Art Loss Register flagged a painting at a Danish auction after spotting a Polish label on its reverse. Researchers confirmed it as the missing Wegmann piece.
The Danish siblings who had inherited the painting, unaware of its past, chose to return it to Poland. Culture Minister Marta Cienkowska praised the gesture as an act of “historical justice.” The painting will now go on public display in Wrocław, joining more than 800 cultural items Poland has successfully recovered since 2008.
