Max Silberberg was a wealthy industrialist in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland). He began collecting art, primarily Impressionist paintings, in the 1920s. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, Silberberg, who was Jewish, was forced out of his job. His art collection of over 143 paintings were sold at four forced auctions in Berlin between 1933-1938. Silberberg's son Alfred and daughter-in-law Gerta fled to Britain just prior to the war, but Silberberg and his wife remained in Germany, where they are assumed to have died in a concentration camp. Two pictures from the Silberberg collection are now in the National Gallery of Art, having been purchased in Paris in 1932 by Chester Dale.
Bibliography
1931
Scheffler, Karl. "Die Sammlung Max Silberberg." Kunst und Künstler XXX (October 1931): 3+
1932
"The Sale of the S...& S... Collections." Formes XXV (May 1932):282+
1999
Watson, Peter and Sharne Thomas. "Holocaust Widow set to win back UKP.3m painting." Times of London (3 June 1999).
2001
Heuss, Anja. "Die Sammlung Max Silberberg in Breslau." In Die Moderne und ihre Sammler: französische Kunst in deutschem Privatbesitz vom Kaiserreich zur Weimarer Republik. Berlin, 2001: 312-325.
