Josef Morgenstern (born June 6, 1886 in Kis-Szlatina, Hungary; died after September 1942 in Auschwitz) was a Jewish art collector who was murdered by the Nazis in the Holocaust.
His employer, the limited partnership Kontinentale Eisenhandelsgesellschaft Kern & CoMorgenstern, fired him from his job as deputy head of the Röhrenkartell office in May 1938.
[6] On August 26, 1959 Holocaust survivor Alice Morgenstern, the widow of Josef Morgenstern murdered in Auschwitz, filed a claim to the Finanzlandesdirektion für Wien, Niederösterreich und das Burgenland (Provincial Tax Office for Vienna, Lower Austria and Burgenland in which she stated, "the picture Four Trees by Egon Schiele, which used to be owned by us, is now hanging in the Upper Belvedere.
Wengraf” was entered deliberately to hide the fact that the picture was owned in 1938 by Josef Morgenstern can only be speculated at.
Bruno Grimschitz, who was relieved of his post as director of the Österreichische Galerie in October 1945 on account of his membership of the NSDAP, must have known the former owner, Josef Morgenstern, who loaned the painting for the Schiele-Gedächtnisausstellung in 1928.