Expert

Balke, Franz

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:37:54 +0000

Balke, Franz Leonhard Weidinger Tue, 02/09/2021 - 19:28

Franz Balke

28 August 1889 Otzenrath, Rhineland – 3 September 1972 Hamburg

Franz Balke, who studied art history at the universities of Tübingen, Berlin and Bonn, worked for ten years after the First World War as a teacher and educator and had his own community home in Cammin/Pomerania. In 1927 he became an assistant in the Pomeranian Provincial Administration, where he helped to establish the more recent departments in the Landesmuseum in Stettin. He became an official custodian in 1930 and was appointed the following year as Provinzialkonservator (head curator) of Pomerania. In the mid-1930s he was obliged because of a conflict with the NSDAP Gau leadership to leave the Pomeranian Provincial Administration. He worked thereafter for a short time at Krefeld Museum. After being employed from 1936 to 1939 as art consultant in the German Army Administration in Hannover, he was appointed in 1939 as consultant in the Zentralstelle für Denkmalschutz (Central Monument Protection Authority) and moved to Vienna. Here he was responsible for assessing art objects for the Authority and was also involved in active monument protection. In 1942 he moved to the Österreichische Galerie, where he was entrusted initially with arrangements for the Prince Eugene Museum in the Winter Palace, which was ultimately never realized, before being also associated with salvaging operations. He was appointed a curator in 1944 with the assistance of museum director Bruno Grimschitz, although he was unable to obtain tenure for him because of his advanced age. Apart from his employment in the Österreichische Galerie, the monument authority also entrusted Balke in July 1945 with the salvaging and repatriation of artworks under the leadership of Hugo Kaucig. The following year he began as an expert in modern painting in the Dorotheum art department, and as a court-sworn expert in fine arts in 1948 he visited the storage depot in Celle to identify artworks belonging to Austrians. When he was dismissed in 1954, on account of disagreements with the director Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh, among other things because of his work for the Dorotheum, he was meant to be attached to the Federal Monuments Authority, but the appointment was never made. Thereafter he worked as a freelance court expert in the art trade in Vienna. In 1969 he moved to West Germany, where he died a few years later in Hamburg.

Keywords

Monument preservation

Katinka Gratzer-Baumgärtner

25 June 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Theodor Brückler/Ulrike Nimeth, Personenlexikon zur Österreichischen Denkmalpflege (1850–1990), Bundesdenkmalamt, Wien 2001.

Katinka Gratzer-Baumgärtner, Das Belvedere in Wien: zum Status der Provenienzforschung in der Bibliothek des Hauses, in: Bruno Bauer/Christina Köstner-Pemsel/Markus Stumpf (Hg.), NS-Provenienzforschung an österreichischen Bibliotheken. Anspruch und Wirklichkeit (= Schriften der Vereinigung Österreichischer Bibliothekarinnen und Bibliothekare 10), Graz-Feldkirch 2011, 391–412, URL: fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/objects/o:290050/methods/bdef:Content/download (3.12.2020).

Publications by the person / institution

Franz Balke, Der Bildhauer Fritz Wotruba, in: Die Zeit. Halbmonatsschrift für Kunst, Kultur und Politik (1948) 16, 16–18.
Franz Balke, Ein Kinderbildnis von Thomas Lawrence in der Österreichischen Galerie zu Wien, Stuttgart 1950.

Archives

Archiv der Österreichischen Galerie Belvedere, Wien, PA Franz Balke; Zl. 24/1943; Zl. 44/1944; Zl. 69/1945; Zl. 152/1946, Zl. 3/1948, Zl. 309/1951; 272/1952; 131/1953; 649/1953.

BDA-Archiv, PA Franz Balke.

Dorotheum Wien, Einbringungsaufzeichnungen 1966.

OeStA/AdR, ZNsZ, Gauakt 44.466, Franz Balke.

GND: 116043814

VIAF: 8129184

Wikidata: Q94840922

Dworschak, Fritz

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:37:58 +0000

Dworschak, Fritz

Susanne Hehenberger Fri, 11/13/2020 - 08:18

Fritz Dworschak

27 February 1890 Krems – 10 September 1974 Krems

also Friedrich Dworschak

The numismatist Fritz Dworschak took advantage of the Nazi era to assume central functions in the Vienna museum scene. After obtaining his doctorate in 1913 from the University of Vienna and passing the State Examination the same year at the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung (Institute of Austrian Historical Research), he worked as an intern at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and was employed there from 1915. Apart from being a curator at the museum, he was also the Dorotheum's expert in coins and medals from 1924 to 1939. In March 1938 he became provisional director of the Kunsthistorisches Museum and was its First Director from 1941 until he was removed from office on 26 April 1945. In July 1938, referring to his "pan-German attitude" and because he had "always felt associated with the Hitler movement", he applied for membership of the NSDAP. This was initially rejected, but in October 1940 he became member number 9,020.874. Supported by the weapons expert Leopold Ruprecht, who had been an active member of the NSDAP since 1932, he managed the Zentraldepot für beschlagnahmte Sammlungen (Central Depot for Seized Collections) in the Neue Burg, which was set up in autumn 1938. From summer 1939, he coordinated the storage of items from Viennese state museums, which was supervised from summer 1942 by Ludwig Berg from the Generalreferat für Kunstförderung, Staatstheater, Museen und Volksbildung (General Office for the Advancement of Art, State Theatre, Museums and Culture). Apart from these functions, in August 1941 Dworschak became an assessor for the Reichskammer der bildenden Künste (Reich Chamber of Fine Arts) art and culture purchasing department. From August 1942 he also headed the "Sonderauftrag Münzen" (special coin project) and played a central role in the acquisition of coins and medals for the planned "Führer Museum" in Linz. In October 1943 he married Elfriede Höbarth, recruited for this special project in June 1943 as a coin specialist. At his trial by the Volksgericht in 1946 he denied his NSDAP membership. He was retired from the civil service in March 1947 but a few months later was recruited as a consultant for the city of Krems, where he remained until he retired in 1958. He was awarded the title "Hofrat" in 1960 for his "exceptional service".

Keywords

"Sonderauftrag Linz"

"Sonderauftrag Münzen"

Nazi art and culture policy

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

N. N., Dworschak, Fritz, in: aeiou, Österreich-Lexikon, URL: www.aeiou.at/aeiou.encyclop.d/d997647.htm (3.12.2020).

Lee Sorensen, Dworschak, Fritz, in: Dictionary of Art Historians, URL: arthistorians.info/dworschakf (3.12.2020).

Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Raub und Restitution, Glossar, Fritz Dwoschark, URL: jmberlin.de/raub-und-restitution/de/glossar_d.php (3.12.2020).

Harry Kühnel, Dr. Fritz Dworschak. Versuch einer Würdigung, in: Mitteilungen des Kremser Stadtarchivs 23/24/25 (1985), 265-281.

Emanuele Sbardella, Die dritte Seite der Medaille. Dworschak als Sonderbeauftragter Hitlers für den Aufbau eines Münzkabinettes im sog. Führermuseum. Masterarbeit, TU Berlin, eingereicht am 30. April 2015.

Publications by the person / institution

zahlreiche numismatische Publikationen

Führer durch das Erzbischöfliche Dom- und Diözesanmuseum in Wien, bearbeitet von Fritz Dworschak und Justus Schmidt, Wien 1933 (mehrere Auflagen).

Fritz Dworschak (Hg.), Kataloge der stiftlichen Kunstsammlungen in Klosterneuburg, Klosterneuburg 1937–1943.
Fritz Dworschak, Der Maler Martin Johann Schmidt, genannt "Der Kremser Schmidt", 1718-1801, Wien 1955.
Fritz Dworschak, Krems und Stein, Wachau: Niederösterreich (= Kleine Kunstführer 652), München 1957.
Fritz Dworschak, Wachau und Nibelungengau (= Große Kunstführer 34), München 1961.

Ludwig Baldass, Fritz Dworschak, Die Gotik in Niederösterreich. Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte eines Landes im Spätmittelalter, Wien 1963.

Archives

DASP, Trauungsbuch Dürnstein 1891–1924, fol. 115, Trauung von Friedrich Dworschak und Maria Dum, 19.9.1916, URL: data.matricula-online.eu/de/oesterreich/st-poelten/duernstein/02-04/?pg=132 (3.12.2020).

KHM-Archiv, IV 95, NL Fritz Dworschak; 1/KL/1938 (Ernennung zum Kommissarischen Leiter, Anmeldung bei Reichskammer); 3/KL/1938, 93/KL/1939 (Bezüge und Aufwandsentschädigungen); 119/KL/1939 (Ausstellungseröffnung Berlin); 130/KL/1939 (Studienreisen); 149/KL/1939 (Dienstreise Böhmen, Schlesien); 53/KL/1941 (KHM Eigentum in den verschiedenen Gauen, Korrespondenz); 63/KL/1941 (Korrespondenzen, Anstellung Gassauer); 138/KL/1941 (Vortrag in Rom); 144/KL/1941 (Urlaub pro 1941); 205/KL/1941 (Dienstreise nach Linz); 206/KL/1941 (Ernennung zum Sachverständigen der Reichskammer der bildenden Künste); 259/KL/1941 (Ernennung zum ersten Direktor des KHM); 52/ED/1942 (Betrauung mit der Leitung des Münzkabinetts); 124/ED/1942 (Berufung in den Fachbeirat); 153/ED/1942 (Urlaub); 9/ED/1943 (UK-Stellung); 25/ED/1943 (Urlaub); 44/ED/1943 (Dienstreise mit Höbarth nach München); 72/ED/1943 (Erkrankung); 18/ED/1944 (Reisen und Abwesenheiten); 2/ED/1945 (Bericht über Bergungsmaßnahmen); 16/ED/1945 (Reisen u.a.); 46/ED/1945 (Maßnahmen gg. NationalsozialistInnen auf Grund des Verfassungsgesetzes v. 8.5.1945); 33/ED/1945 (Sonderauftrag); I 31, Dworschak an Dorotheum, 19.12.1939 (Niederlegung der Expertentätigkeit); 248/VK/43, Verehelichung mit Elfriede Höbarth.

OeStA/AdR, UWK, BMU, Personalakten, K. 3/28, Friedrich Dworschak.
OeStA/AdR, ZNsZ, Gauakt 562, Fritz Dworschak.

WStLA, LG für Strafsachen, A11, Vr-Strafakten, VgVr 1929/46 Ludwig Berg, Fritz Dworschak.
WStLA, Gauakten, A1-'Gauakten', Personalakten des Gaues Wien, 315.283, Fritz Dworschak.
WStLA, Historische Wiener Meldeunterlagen, Meldeauskunft Fritz Dworschak.

GND: 136589162

VIAF: 80907734

Wikidata: Q17417910

Eigenberger, Robert

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:39:23 +0000

Eigenberger, Robert Konstantin Ferihumer Wed, 11/18/2020 - 11:02

Robert Eigenberger

14 February 1890 Sedlitz, Bohemia – 14 April 1979 Vienna

Robert Eigenberger studied art history at the German University in Prague and wrote his doctoral thesis in 1913 on the sculptor Adam Krafft. The same year he became an intern and later an assistant at the k. k. Zentralkommission für Denkmalpflege (Imperial Royal Central Commission for Monument Conservation) in Vienna. During the First World War, he volunteered in May 1915 but was discharged six months later, having been seriously ill with typhoid fever, and was then employed collecting metal for the war effort. In 1917 he was appointed curator of the Paintings Gallery of the k. k. Akademie der bildenden Künste in Wien (Imperial Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna). In his function from 1922 as director of the Paintings Gallery he reorganized the display and published a comprehensive inventory in 1927. He was also a freelance painter, winning the Österreichischer Staatspreis für Malerei (Austrian State Prize for Painting) in 1930 and was a member of the Vereinigung bildender Künstler Wiener Secession (Society of Fine Artists – Vienna Secession). In 1926 he was awarded the title of professor and from the summer semester 1927 was also an honorary lecturer in art history at the Viennese Akademie. From 1930 at the latest he was also an assessor and expert at the Dorotheum. In 1933 he was put in charge of restoration in the Paintings Gallery and gave a restoration course at the Akademie. He was subsequently appointed extraordinary professor and became head of the Department of Conservation and Technology in 1934. By his own admission, he carried out intelligence work for the illegal NSDAP from around 1934 but did not officially become a member until May 1938. At the same time, he changed his religion from Roman Catholic to "gottgläubig" ("religious"), became a supporting member of the SS and NS-Dozentenführer (NS senior lecturer) at the Viennese Akademie. In 1940 he was appointed ordinary professor and was given the Erinnerungsmedaille (Memorial Medal) on 13 March 1938 for his "National Socialist activity during its illegality". This was followed in 1942 by the Silbernes Treudienstehrenzeichen (Silver Loyalty Medal of Honour). Eigenberger was the Akademie's air raid officer responsible for salvaging works from the Paintings Gallery and deciding which items in the collection were to be stored for protection during the Second World War. From 1939, for example, he organized the transfer of over 600 objects to external depots inside and outside Vienna. Around 1,300 works, categorized by him as third-class, were left in the Academy building, around 520 of which were destroyed or disappeared when it was hit by a bomb on 12 March 1945. Moreover, 120 items stored in external depots were lost through looting and other causes.

Eigenberger was relieved of his position in June 1945 but was able to resume teaching at the Akademie in November 1946. According to a decision by the Federal President of 13 September 1947 he was classified as a lesser offender on account of his "exceptional knowledge", and in 1949 he was made extraordinary professor. That year the Federal Ministry of Education investigated Eigenberger, accusing him of having caused sustained damage during the restoration work carried out by him in 1938/1939. The expert opinions by Ludwig Baldass, Otto Benesch, Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh, Josef Hajsinek and Franz Sochor in early 1949 questioned Eigenberger's qualification as a restorer and head of the masterclass for restoration and technology. Eigenberger had no training as a restorer but was self-taught. As the committee established to examine the reproaches—four of the five members were professors at the Akademie—did not reach any satisfactory conclusions, the Ministry of Education called in an external expert in 1950/51, which led to protests by the teaching staff at the Akademie. The records do not show what consequences this had for Eigenberger. At the staff meeting of 1 June 1951 he was elected rector of the Akademie for the academic years 1951/52 and 1952/53, and he held this position again in 1954/55. He was pro-rector in 1953/54 and 1955–1957 and became an ordinary professor in 1955. After his retirement on 27 July 1961 he remained head of the masterclass for conservation and technology and also gave a course in this subject. From 1962 to 1965 he was chairman of the Akademie's Institut für sakrale Kunst (Institute for Sacral Art). He retired from active service on 30 September 1965. After receiving the Goldenes Lorbeer (Golden Laurel) of the Vienna Künstlerhaus in 1960, he was awarded the Große Ehrenurkunde (Great Certificate of Honour) of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 1978 and honorary membership of the Genossenschaft bildender Künstler Wiens (Künstlerhaus) in 1977.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Heribert Hutter (Hg.), Dr. Robert Eigenberger. Gedächtnisausstellung, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien, Wien 1979.

Gertrude Prammer (Hg.), Robert Eigenberger 1890–1979, Mistelbach 1980.

René Schober, "...da ihre Beschädigung keinen Verlust von unersetzlichen Kulturwerten darstellen würde". Bergungen und Kriegsverluste der Akademischen Gemäldegalerie im Zweiten Weltkrieg, in: Pia Schölnberger/Sabine Loitfellner (Hg.), Bergung von Kulturgut im Nationalsozialismus. Mythen – Hintergründe – Auswirkungen (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 6), Wien-Köln-Weimar 2016, 149–174, URL: doi.org/10.7767/9783205201564-009.

Publications by the person / institution

Robert Eigenberger, Die Gemäldegalerie der Akademie der bildenden Künste in Wien, Textband, Wien-Leipzig 1927.
Robert Eigenberger, Neue Aufgaben der Denkmalpflege, in: Österreichische Kunst 9 (1938) 4, 11–14, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno-plus?aid=oku&datum=1938&page=115 (3.12.2020).
Robert Eigenberger, Zum Wesen und zu den Aufgaben des Instituts für Konservierung und Technologie an der Wiener Akademie für bildende Künste, in: Österreichische Kunst 9 (1938) 10, 19–21, URL: anno.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno-plus?aid=oku&datum=1938&page=317 (3.12.2020).

Archives

OeStA/AdR, UWK, BMU, Personalakten, Robert Eigenberger.
OeStA/AdR, ZNsZ, Gauakt 306.009, Robert Eigenberger.

UAAbKW, Geheimakten.
UAAbKW, PA Robert Eigenberger.

WStLA, M.Abt 119, A 42, NS-Registrierung, Robert Eigenberger.
WStLA, B7/1, NS-Registrierungslisten, 4. Bezirk, Blechturmgasse, Liste Nr. 8.

GND: 129167681

VIAF: 1083814

Wikidata: Q19997585

Ernst, Richard

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:40:18 +0000

Ernst, Richard

Leonhard Weidinger Thu, 10/08/2020 - 14:16

Richard Ernst

1 February 1885 Eger / Cheb, Bohemia – 7 July 1955 Vienna

Johann Nikolaus Richard Ernst, son of a businessman, went to school and university in Prague and obtained a doctorate in art history and classical archaeology in 1909. After working for a short time as a research assistant at the University of Prague Institute of Art History, he joined the k. k. Österreichische Museum für Kunst und Industrie (Imperial Royal Austrian Museum of Art and Industry) as an assistant curator and department head on 29 November 1911 and was responsible initially for metalwork. He served in the Austro-Hungarian army from 1915 to 1918. In the following years he took over the Court Silver and Table Room, the Glass and Ceramics Collection and the Carpet and Textiles Collection and in 1923 wrote the first guide to the Court Silver and Table Room and in 1925 a monograph on the Bloch-Bauer collection of Viennese neoclassicist porcelain. In 1928 he was appointed deputy director. From 1931 he was temporary director of the museum while director August Schestag was on sick leave and was officially appointed director on 5 August 1932. From February 1936 he was also an expert for old applied art in the Dorotheum but withdrew in January 1938 on account of differences of opinion with the auction house management. Parallel to the World's Fair in 1937, Austria was represented at an exhibition in the Musée du Jeu de Paume in Paris, at which Ernst curated the Austrian applied arts section, with loans from the porcelain collections of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, Anton Redlich and Franz Ruhmann. While the works of Oskar Kokoschka were being disavowed at the 1937 Nazi propaganda exhibition of "degenerate" art in Munich, Ernst made the Austrian Museum available in the same year for an exhibition commemorating the artist's fiftieth birthday. After the annexation, Ernst was accused of being politically unreliable for that reason, but his position as director of the Staatliches Kunstgewerbemuseum in Wien (State Arts and Crafts Museum in Vienna) as it was called from May 1938 was not really in jeopardy. He was well established in Vienna and internationally and had been praised by Robert Schmidt, director of the Schlossmuseum in Berlin, and Adolf Feulner, director general of the Arts and Crafts Museums in Cologne. Until 1945, Ernst worked on behalf of the Nazi regime to enlarge the collection of the Kunstgewerbemuseum through the addition of many objects from expropriated or forcibly sold collections, making use of his knowledge of private collections in Vienna. At the same time, for example, he supported Hans Ankwicz-Kleehoven, head of museum library, who had been forced to retire for "racial" reasons, by giving him access to an office. From February 1940, Ernst was also temporary director for two years of the Sculpture and Applied Arts Collection, now the Kunstkammer, in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, during which time he organized an exchange of applied art and antique objects planned since the 1920s between the Kunsthistorisches Museum and the Staatliches Kunstgewerbemuseum. He even managed to obtain special funding of 250,000 Reichsmarks in foreign exchange for purchases from the museums in Italy. On two trips to Florence, Pisa, Rome and Bologna in spring and autumn 1942 he acquired sixteen pieces of Renaissance furniture. Reports issued immediately after the war that Ernst had also been in France on behalf of Reichsleiter Rosenberg and in the Netherlands for Mühlmann's department have not been verified to date. He claimed that, together with museum staff and a resistance group, he prevented the storage of arms and explosives in the museum at the end of March/start of April 1945 and the blowing up of the Stubenbrücke on 7 April 1945.

Ernst remained director in the re-established Republic of Austria. In the course of investigations by the Austrian state police in 1946, Ernst denied being a member of the NSDAP. On the contrary, he had been enrolled "unasked" in 1943 into the Reichsbund der Deutschen Beamten (Reich Federation of German Civil Servants) and his opposition to the NSDAP before and after 1938 was well known. Immediately after the end of the fighting in Vienna on 16 April 1945, Ernst inaugurated the repair of bomb-damaged museum, which was not completed until the early 1950s. Between 1945 and 1948, he also had the important tasks of recovering and restituting objects that had been stored to protect them from air raids. The lists drawn up from 1946 to 1948 in accordance with the Vermögensentziehungs-Anmeldungsverordnung (Property Expropriation Registration Regulation) and on behalf of the Allied Council included practically all objects that the museum had acquired during the Nazi era from expropriated collections. Ernst not only supported collectors known personally to him in the restitution of expropriated objects acquired by the Kunstgewerbemuseum but also helped to locate further items. In other cases, however, he followed the practice of the time of returning objects but disallowing their export and safeguarding them in this way for Austrian museums. On 31 March 1949, Ernst officially opened the Österreichisches Museum für angewandte Kunst (Austrian Museum of Applied Arts) as it was called after 1947. In 1950 an exhibition of major art from Austrian monasteries was the last one under his direction. He retired on 31 December 1950.

Keywords

29 May 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Rainald Franz/Leonhard Weidinger, Die Direktion Richard Ernst. Vom Österreichischen Museum für Kunst und Industrie zum Österreichischen Museum für angewandte Kunst, in: Gabriele Anderl/Christoph Bazil/Eva Blimlinger/Oliver Kühschelm/Monika Mayer/Anita Stelzl-Gallian/Leonhard Weidinger (Hg.), … wesentlich mehr Fälle als angenommen. 10 Jahre Kommission für Provenienzforschung (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 1), Wien-Köln-Weimar 2009, 412–430, URL: doi.org/10.7767/boehlau.9783205118862.412.

Publications by the person / institution

Richard Ernst, Führer durch die ehemalige Hoftafel- und Silberkammer, Zürich-Leipzig-Wien 1923.
Richard Ernst, Wiener Porzellan des Klassizismus. Die Sammlung Bloch-Bauer, Wien 1925.

Richard Ernst/Ernst Garger, Die früh- und hochgotische Plastik des Stefansdoms. Tafelband, München 1927.

Archives

MAK-Archiv, Akten 1932–1950.
MAK-Archiv, NL Richard Ernst.

MAK-Personalakten, PA Ernst, Richard.

OeStA/AdR, UWK, BMU, Personalakten Sign 3, Ernst, Richard.
OeStA/AdR, ZNsZ, GA 935, Ernst, Richard.

GND: 116557761

VIAF: 25356895

Wikidata: Q94848390

Faltis, Otto

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:40:02 +0000

Faltis, Otto Leonhard Weidinger Fri, 03/05/2021 - 16:28

Otto Faltis

30 March 1888 Vienna – 26 June 1974 Vienna

Between 1939 and 1941, on behalf of the Vermögensverkehrsstelle (Property Transaction Office), Otto Faltis liquidated fifty-four Viennese art and antiques dealerships whose owners were persecuted as Jews. After leaving school, he attended the Export Academy, a commercial college, and university courses in actuarial theory and economics. During the First World War he was invalided out of the army. After working for fifteen years in an insurance company, he became independent and acquired several business licences. In the two decades after the First World War he founded several insurance and loan companies and the wholesale company Faltis & Cie. (1919, sole proprietor from 1927), dealing mainly with agricultural supplies. From 1924 to 1938 he was managing director of the Österreichischer Eskont-Verband in Vienna. In 1934 the Federal President awarded him the honorary title Kommerzialrat. After the annexation, he claims to have been a tax consultant and auditor, writing expert opinions and dealing with administrative and liquidation matters. He had offices at Cobenzlgasse 40 in Vienna's 18th district and Tuchlauben 7a in the 1st district. Faltis applied for the Aryanization of Leibnitzer Baumwollspinnerei Ludwig Weiss, but it was taken over by someone else. He received commissions from the Vermögensverkehrsstelle in February and autumn 1939 to liquidate art and antiques dealerships owned by Jews. For various reasons, it was decided later not to liquidate seven of the sixty-one businesses. Faltis wrote reports on the businesses liquidated by him and, in April 1940 and May 1941, two detailed reports of his activities. He listed the revenue from the sale of the objects and the amounts used to pay outstanding debts. He also arranged for the withdrawal of business licences and the deletion of entries in the register of companies. In 1939, on behalf of the Vermögensverkehrsstelle, he sold the inventories of seventeen businesses in two batches in their entirety to a Swedish consortium. He also worked as an auditor and trustee on the Aryanization and liquidation in other sectors, both in Vienna and later in the occupied Netherlands. He was already a member of the NSDAP from 1933 to 1938 when the Party was banned. After the annexation, he was given the membership number 6106822. He was also a member of the Nationalsozialistischer Rechtswahrerbund (National Socialist Association of Legal Professionals), the Deutsche Arbeitsfront (German Labour Front) and the Nationalsozialistische Volkswohlfahrt (National Socialist People's Welfare), but did not leave the Catholic church during the Nazi era.

Immediately after the war, Faltis remained on the supervisory board of Web- und Wirkwarenfabrik Patria in Heidenreichstein and Nobel A.G. He tried very hard to have his name removed from the list of former NSDAP members. He made no mention of his work as a liquidator of art and antiques dealerships in the documents written in exoneration of his activities, and they were not addressed by the authorities either. In the Volksgericht trial of Faltis in 1947 under §§ 8 and 10 of the Prohibition Act (registration fraud and membership of the banned NSDAP), § 6 of the War Criminals Act (illegal enrichment) and § 7 of the Election Act it was only mentioned in passing. Paula Stibbe, widow of the antiques dealer Eugen Stibbe, Goldeggasse 2 in the 4th district, who died in 1945, had claimed various objects as expropriated assets and named Otto Faltis as the initial purchaser. Faltis asserted that when he liquidated the business, neither premises nor cash or goods were present. Referring to his NSDAP membership, he stated that he had been expelled from the Party in 1941 on account of a personal dispute with the Gausippenamt (Genealogy Office) in Vienna regarding his wife's "Ariernachweis" (Aryan certificate) and that his membership from the beginning had been retroactively annulled. He was not able to produce corresponding documentary evidence, stating that it had been buried in the rubble of his office during an air raid in 1944. The Volksgericht trial was dropped in 1948. Faltis continued to work as an auditor and financial consultant after the war, dealing with insurance and loan investigations and information.

Looting and independent actions by temporary administrators had already taken place before the liquidation of the companies by Faltis. Detailed lists of the inventories before the liquidation are of great assistance for provenance researchers, but the reports by Faltis do not contain any such lists.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Gabriele Anderl, "Kostbarkeiten, gemischt mit Trödel...". Die "Abwicklung" jüdischer Kunst- und Antiquitätenhandlungen in Wien während der NS-Zeit, in: Verena Pawlowsky/Harald Wendelin, Enteignete Kunst. Raub und Rückgabe – Österreich von 1938 bis heute, Wien 2006, 36–58.

Archives

OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, K. 997, Abwickler Faltis.

WStLA, Volksgericht, A1, Vg Vr 5837/47, Otto Faltis.
WStLA, M.Abt. 119, A42, NS-Registrierung, Otto Faltis.

GND: 133866831

VIAF: 6135027

Wikidata: Q106878452

Garzarolli-Thurnlackh, Karl

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:40:41 +0000

Garzarolli-Thurnlackh, Karl

Leonhard Weidinger Thu, 11/19/2020 - 19:57

Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh

25 September 1894 Prague – 11 September 1964 Vienna

Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh studied art history and history in Vienna and Graz, receiving his doctoral degree from the University of Graz in 1920. He began his career in 1919 as a librarian in the Institute of Art History in Graz and was recruited in the same year by the Styrian provincial government as a temporary assistant in the Graphics Collection at the Joanneum. In 1923 he became provisional director of the Picture Gallery, which was subsequently merged with the Graphics Collection, which he had headed since 1920, to become the Landesbildergalerie (provincial picture gallery). As permanent director, he made use of his professional network from 1924 and, with the support of the Landeskonservator Walter Semetkowski, saw the adoption in 1935 of a provincial constitutional law offering tax exemption to Styrian monasteries and abbeys in return for the transfer to the province of title to artworks. This resulted in the transfer of medieval artwork from St Lambrecht and Admont to the Joanneum. The two abbeys were seized after the annexation of Austria to the German Reich in 1938 and many artworks from their collections transferred to the Landesbildergalerie for safekeeping. As Garzarolli-Thurnlackh's criticism of the seizure of these properties and the provisional administration of the abbey by the Reichsstatthalter was interpreted as "treason", he was dismissed on 19 March 1939. After his rehabilitation by Josef Bürckel, Reich Commissar for the Reunification of Austria with the German Reich, he was reappointed from 30 January 1940 and, after the division of the Landesbildergalerie into the Alte and Neue Galerie in June 1941, became head of the Alte Galerie and sculpture collection. In this function he enlarged the collection, focusing on Gothic panel paintings and statues. He added numerous artworks expropriated from persecuted collectors in Vienna and Graz, such as Alphonse and Louis Rothschild, Oscar Bondy, Rudolf Gutmann, Valerie Eisler, Albert Pollak and Robert Spira. He travelled often to Vienna to select the works he wished to obtain from secured and seized collections. He is also known to have come to an arrangement with Bruno Grimschitz, director of the Österreichische Galerie in 1942 regarding the acquisition of the oil sketch Apotheosis of Saint Cajetan by Jakob Zanusi. Hans Herbst, head of the Dorotheum art department, had offered the work in 1940 to both directors after the seizure of the removal goods of August Blumberg and its transfer by Vugesta to the Dorotheum for sale. Garzarolli-Thurnlackh allowed first refusal to Grimschitz, who purchased the painting for the Österreichische Galerie. In 2009, it was recommended for restitution to Blumberg's heirs. As director of the Alte Galerie and sculpture collection, Garzarolli-Thurnlackh was responsible for putting artworks into safe storage. From 1938 he also acted as a court expert in general art in Graz. From November 1944 to the end of April 1945 he was a member of the Volkssturm.

After the war, he became temporary director of the Neue Galerie in the Joanneum in May 1945, since Hans Riehl, who had been its director since 1941, was forced to renounce the position for a time because of his former membership of the NSDAP. In October 1946 Garzarolli-Thurnlackh curated the exhibition Austrian Art from the Middle Ages to the Present with Fritz Novotny and Ignaz Schlosser at the Staatliches Kunstgewerbemuseum (State Art and Crafts Museum in Vienna now MAK). In the same year, he obtained his habilitation at the University of Graz and became director of the Albertina in Vienna. In 1947 he transferred to the Österreichische Galerie, where he was responsible for transforming it into a museum of Austrian art. He was also involved with restitution claims, such as those of Victor Ephrussi, Alma Mahler-Werfel and Robert Pollak and their legal successors. At the same time, like his predecessor Bruno Grimschitz, he continued to acquire high-quality artworks from the formerly persecuted Viennese collectors. In this way, in 1948 he obtained Klimt's Houses in Unterach on Lake Attersee and Birch Forest / Beech Forest from the Bloch-Bauer collection. They were restituted to the heirs of Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer in accordance with an arbitration court decision of 2006. In 1950 the lawyer Christian Broda informed Garzarolli-Thurnlackh of the storage of works from the former Heinrich Rieger collection with the Vienna transporter Spedition Hausner & Co., leading to negotiations with Rieger's heirs for the acquisition of some of the pictures by the Österreichische Galerie. Among them was Portrait of Wally by Egon Schiele, which had been restituted by mistake to Rieger's heirs but was in fact owned by Lea Bondi-Jaray, proprietor of Galerie Würthle in Vienna, and which became part of the Leopold collection in 1954 in exchange for other works. In 1953/54 Garzarolli-Thurnlackh was responsible for restructuring the collections in the Upper and Lower Belvedere, including the opening of the Museum of Medieval Art in the Orangery. He also set up a restoration workshop headed by the restorer and painter Wilhelm Kainz. He remained director until his retirement in 1959 and also lectured in general history of art in the Philosophy Faculty in Graz.

Keywords

Katinka Gratzer-Baumgärtner

12 February 2020

Publications about the person / institution

Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, 25.11.2004, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Bloch-Bauer_Ferdinand_2004-11-25.pdf (3.12.2020).
Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, 1.6.2007, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Bloch-Bauer_Ferdinand_2007-06-01.pdf (3.12.2020).

Walter Brunner (Hg.), Geschichte der Stadt Graz, Bd. 4 – Stadtlexikon, Graz 2003.

Hubertus Czernin, Die Fälschung. Der Fall Bloch-Bauer (= Bibliothek des Raubes 3a), Wien 1999.

Walter Höflechner, Die Kunstgeschichte an der Universität Graz. Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh 1946–1959, in: Walter Höflechner/Götz Pochat (Hg.), 100 Jahre Kunstgeschichte an der Universität Graz (= Publikationen aus dem Archiv der Universität Graz 26), Graz 1992, 137–138.

Alois Kernbauer, Der Nationalsozialismus im Mikrokosmos. Die Universität Graz 1938. Analyse – Dokumentation – Gedenkbuch (= Publikationen aus dem Archiv der Universität Graz 48), Graz 2019.

Karin Leitner-Ruhe, Das Universalmuseum Joanneum und sein Umgang mit Raubkunst von 1938 bis heute, in: Karin Leitner-Ruhe/Gudrun Danzer/Monika Binder-Krieglstein (Hg.), Restitutionsbericht 1999–2010 Universalmuseum Joanneum, Graz 2010, 16–34, URL: www.museum-joanneum.at/fileadmin//user_upload/Presse/Aktuelle_Projekte/Archiv/2010/praesentation-des-re/Restitutionsbericht_01.pdf (3.12.2020).

Karin Leitner-Ruhe, Ein Bilderstapel lehnt auf dem anderen, eine Plastik drängt sich an der anderen. Zu den Luftschutzmaßnahmen der Gemäldegalerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum Graz ab 1939, in: Pia Schölnberger/Sabine Loitfellner (Hg.), Bergung von Kulturgut im Nationalsozialismus. Mythen – Hintergründe – Auswirkungen (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 6), Wien-Köln-Weimar 2016, 249–270, URL: doi.org/10.7767/9783205201564-013.

Karin Leitner-Ruhe/Christine Rabensteiner, Von der steiermärkischen "Landes-Bildergallerie" zur Alten Galerie im Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz, in: Græcensien. Archive und Museen zu Graz (= Historisches Jahrbuch der Stadt Graz 45/46), Graz 2016, 39–58.

Herbert Lipsky, Kunst einer dunklen Zeit. Die bildende Kunst in der Steiermark zur Zeit des Nationalsozialismus. Ein Handbuch, Graz 2010.

Alfred Stix (Hg.), Österreichische Kunst vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart, Ausstellung im Staatlichen Kunstgewerbemuseum, Wien Oktober 1946.

Kurt Woisetschläger, Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh zum Gedenken, in: Joanneum Jahresbericht (1993) Neue Folge 23, 125–130.

Publications by the person / institution

Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh, Die Barockausstellung im Museum Johanneum in Graz, Wien 1924.
Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh, Das graphische Werk Martin Johann Schmidt's 1718–1801, Wien 1924.
Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh, Die barocke Handzeichnung in Österreich, Wien 1928.
Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh, Führer durch die Sonderausstellung Steirische Plastik und Malerei bis 1440: Landesgemäldegalerie Graz, Graz 1936.
Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh, Mittelalterliche Plastik in der Steiermark, Graz 1941.
Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh, Die steirischen Malerschulen bis zur Mitte des 15. Jahrhunderts, in: Das Joanneum. Beiträge zur Naturkunde, Geschichte, Kunst und Wirtschaft des Ostalpenraumes (1943) 6, Kunst und Geschichte, 201–218.
Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh, Österreichische Barockmalerei, Wien 1949.
Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh, Gedächtnisausstellung [Wilhelm] Thöny, Österreichische Galerie, Wien 1955.
Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh, Gedächtnisausstellung Rudolf Wacker, 1893-1939, Österreichische Galerie, Wien 1958.
Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh, Briefmarkenserie mit Darstellungen österreichischer Baudenkmäler: Ergänzungswert, Wien 1963.

Archives

Archiv der Österreichischen Galerie Belvedere Wien, PA Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh; 36/1942; 80/1948; 350/1948; 259/1949; 403/1951; 922/1964 (Nachruf).

BDA-Archiv, PA Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh, 3093/1939.

Deutsches Biographisches Archiv (DBA), II 428, 293–298; III 281, 244–245.

OeStA/AdR, UWK, BMU, PA Karl Garzarolli-Thurnlackh.
OeStA/AdR, UWK, BMU, 15B1 ÖG 1940-48 bzw. 15B2-B2b 1940-54, K 150, Zl. 24388-II-6/47.

StLA, Adressbuch der Landeshauptstadt Graz 1936, 1937, 1938 und 1943/44.
StLA, Neuaktenabteilung, L. Reg. 370 G 18/1942, PA Garzarolli-Thurnlackh, Zl. 164/1939; L. Reg. 371/I/P1/1947.

GND: 1018921001

VIAF: 224438915

Wikidata: Q2739410

Gerstl, Siegfried

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:39:47 +0000

Gerstl, Siegfried Konstantin Ferihumer Wed, 11/18/2020 - 13:02

Siegfried Gerstl

11 April 1862 Temesvár, Hungary (now Romania) – 25 September 1938 Vienna

Siegfried Gerstl was a Kommerzialrat and sworn commercial court expert in agricultural machines. In this function he gave talks to farmers' associations and published articles in trade journals such as the Wiener Landwirtschaftliche Zeitung. As an expert in agricultural machines, he offered to donate books and glass negatives to the Technisches Museum Wien in early August 1938. At this time he and his wife Irma were already being persecuted by the Nazis as Jews. After his death in September 1938, the objects were given to the Technisches Museum by his widow. In January 1943 the Gestapo arrested her in her apartment on Liechtensteinstraße and deported her to Theresienstadt ghetto, where she died a short time afterwards.

A publication and several hundred glass negatives formerly owned by Gerstl were found in the archive and library of the Technisches Museum Wien. Based on the results of provenance research, the Art Restitution Advisory Board recommended the restitution of these objects in 2006 and 2008, but to date no heirs have been identified.

Keywords

Nazi persecutee

Expert

Christian Klösch

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Siegfried Gerstl, 28.6.2006, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Gerstl_Siegfried_2006-06-28.pdf (3.12.2020).
Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Siegfried Gerstl, 21.11.2008, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Gerstl_Siegfried_2008-11-21.pdf (3.12.2020).

Christian Klösch, Inventarnummer 1938. Provenienzforschung am Technischen Museum Wien, Wien 2015.

Publications by the person / institution

Siegfried Gerstl, Die Mähmaschine in Österreich. Skizzen zur Geschichte der landwirtschaftlichen Geräte. Sonderdruck aus der Wiener Landwirtschaftlichen Zeitung, Wien 1900.

Archives

OeStA/AdR, E-uReang, VVSt, VA 1086, Irma Gerstl.

TMW-Archiv, Korrespondenz 1938, PZ 1888/38, 1904/38, 2120/38.

WStLA, BG Josefstadt, A4/8-8a, Verlassenschaftsakt Siegfried Gerstl.

GND: 1045784850

VIAF: 305922849

Wikidata: Q106878461

Grimschitz, Bruno

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:40:43 +0000

Grimschitz, Bruno

Susanne Hehenberger Wed, 11/18/2020 - 12:46

Bruno Grimschitz

24 February 1892 Moosburg, Carinthia – 13 June 1964 Vienna

After attending the k. k. Staatsobergymnasium in Klagenfurt, Bruno Grimschitz studied art history from 1910 at the University of Vienna under Max Dvořák and completed his studies at the Institut für Österreichische Geschichtsforschung (Institute of Austrian Historical Research). He had German nationalist sympathies and in 1912 joined the Akademische Landsmannschaft Kärnten in Vienna and was an officer on the Italian and Russian fronts in the First World War. In 1918 he was awarded a doctorate with a thesis on the artistic development of Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt. The following year he started his career as a research assistant at the Österreichische Galerie in Vienna, being promoted in 1928 to second-class curator and six years later to first-class curator. From 1932 he lectured in modern art history and museology at the Technical University in Vienna. In 1937 the University of Vienna authorized him to teach art history and made him an extraordinary professor in 1941.

After the annexation of Austria to the National Socialist German Reich in March 1938, Franz Martin Haberditzl, director of the Österreichische Galerie was removed from office by the Ministry of Internal and Cultural Affairs and replaced by his long-standing deputy Grimschitz. On 6 April 1938 Grimschitz submitted an application to become provisional director of the museum, which was approved on an interim basis by the Ministry in a decree of 24 May 1938. On 20 August 1938 he was appointed provisional director and on 28 December 1939 permanent director of the museum. Grimschitz, NSDAP party member since May 1938, established himself during the Nazi era as a multiple functionary and advanced to become one of the most influential personalities in the art and culture scene in the Ostmark. Apart from his undisputed expertise, the Gaupersonalamt (personnel office of the Reichsgau Vienna) emphasized his political reliability and nationalist sympathies during the period of illegality. He worked from 1929 as an expert in recent painting in the art department of the Dorotheum in Vienna and from 1938 as an assessor in the newly established Vermögensverkehrsstelle (Property Transaction Office). On 22 August 1941 the Reichskammer der bildenden Künste (Reich Chamber of Fine Arts) appointed him as an expert in the evaluation of Jewish-owned art for their culture purchasing department. He had no scruples about using the knowledge he acquired in this capacity, for example in the case of Valerie Honig. He evaluated her collection in 1938 at 49,000 Reichsmarks and, having informed the Institut für Denkmalpflege (Institute for Monument Conservation) of her deportation in 1942, asked about the whereabouts of her artworks with a view to possible acquisition. Alongside his directorship of the Österreichische Galerie, in January 1940 he became provisional director of the Picture Gallery in the Kunsthistorisches Museum until Gert Adriani took over in 1941. In October of that year he was entrusted with the directorship of the new Prinz Eugene Museum to be housed in Prince Eugene's former winter place in Himmelpfortgasse, Vienna. His German nationalist preference for rural, vital and powerful painting was in contrast to the "decadent urban view of art" of the likes of Gustav Klimt. This attitude did not prevent him from organizing a comprehensive Klimt retrospective by order of Reichsstatthalter Baldur von Schirach in the Wiener Secession in 1943. In that year, Josef Dobrowsky's contemporary portrait of Grimschitz was not admitted to the Künstlerhaus exhibition Viennese Portraits from Art and Science Circles 1900–1943, as it contained "elements of degenerate art". On 1 June 1944 the Salzburg Gauleiter Gustav Adolf Scheel entrusted him with heading the Zweckverband "Salzburger Museum", in which he cooperated closely with Friedrich Welz, art dealer and Aryanizer of Galerie Würthle in Vienna.

In an article in the daily newspaper Neues Österreich on 4 May 1945, Grimschitz pointed to his "acquisitions extensively running counter to National Socialist guidelines" during the war, including purchases of pictures by artists such as Lovis Corinth, Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele. In a decree of 6 October 1945, however, the Staatsamt für Volksaufklärung, Unterricht und Erziehung und für Kultusangelegenheiten (State Office for Popular Enlightenment, Schools, Education and Cultural Affairs) nevertheless removed him from his function as director of the Österreichische Galerie on account of his former NSDAP membership and retired him permanently on 31 October 1947 as a "lesser offender". In 1956 he was reinstated at the University of Vienna as a lecturer in art history, a position he held until 1963. Twenty-six of the artworks acquired under Grimschitz's direction were reported by the interim head of the Österreichische Galerie Fritz Novotny under the Vermögensentziehungs-Anmeldungsverordnung (Regulation on the Notification of Seized Property), which entered into force on 17 September 1946, as Aryanized assets. In the post-war period the museum restituted twelve objects to their former owners or legal successors, including ten of the works declared to have been expropriated, among others, from the collections of Victor Ephrussi and Alma Mahler-Werfel.

Keywords

17 November 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Vally Honig-Roeren, 28.6.2006, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Honig-Roeren_Vally_2006-06-28.pdf (3.12.2020).

Alexandra Caruso, Raub in geordneten Bahnen, in: Gabriele Anderl/Alexandra Caruso (Hg.), NS-Kunstraub in Österreich und die Folgen, Innsbruck-Wien-Bozen 2005, 90–109.

Hubertus Czernin, Die Fälschung. Der Fall Bloch Bauer (= Bibliothek des Raubes 3a), Wien 1999.
Hubertus Czernin, Die Fälschung. Der Fall Bloch Bauer und das Werk Gustav Klimts (= Bibliothek des Raubes 3b), Wien 1999..

Rainer Fuchs, Apologie und Diffamierung des "Österreichischen Expressionismus". Begriffs- und Rezeptionsgeschichte der österreichischen Malerei 1908 bis 1938, Wien-Köln 1991.

Karl Ginhart/Gotbert Moro (Hg.), Gedenkbuch Bruno Grimschitz (= Kärntner Museumsschriften 44), Klagenfurt 1967.

Gert Kerschbaumer, Meister des Verwirrens. Die Geschäfte des Kunsthändlers Friedrich Welz (= Bibliothek des Raubes 5), Wien 2000.

Michael Krapf, Wissenschaft für das Museum – Museum für die Wissenschaft, in: Hadwig Kräutler/Gerbert Frodl (Hg.), Das Museum. Spiegel und Motor kulturpolitischer Visionen. 100 Jahre Österreichische Galerie Belvedere. 1903–2003, Wien 2004, 133–146.

Monika Mayer, Bruno Grimschitz und die Österreichische Galerie 1938–1945. Eine biographische Annäherung im Kontext der aktuellen Provenienzforschung, in: Gabriele Anderl/Alexandra Caruso (Hg.), NS-Kunstraub in Österreich und die Folgen, Innsbruck-Wien-Bozen 2005, 59–79.

Publications by the person / institution

Bruno Grimschitz, Johann Lucas von Hildebrandts künstlerische Entwicklung bis zum Jahre 1725, Wien 1922.
Bruno Grimschitz, Die österreichische Zeichnung im 19. Jahrhundert, Wien 1928.
Bruno Grimschitz, Die Wiener Ringstraße, Wien-Bremen 1938.
Bruno Grimschitz, Maler der Ostmark im 19. Jahrhundert, Wien 1940.
Bruno Grimschitz, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller. Leben und Werk, Wien 1943.
Bruno Grimschitz, Wiener Barockpaläste, Wien 1944.
Bruno Grimschitz, Das Belvedere in Wien, Wien 1946.
Bruno Grimschitz, Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller, Werkverzeichnis, Salzburg 1957.
Bruno Grimschitz, Johann Michael Prunner, Wien 1958.
Bruno Grimschitz, Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt, Wien-München 1959.
Bruno Grimschitz, Österreichische Maler vom Biedermeier zur Moderne, Wien 1963.

Bruno Grimschitz/Karl Ginhart, Der Dom zu Gurk, Wien 1930.

Bruno Grimschitz/Franz Martin Haberditzl, Handzeichnungen und Aquarelle der Österreichischen Galerie, Wien 1922.

Archives

Archiv der Österreichischen Galerie Belvedere, PA Bruno Grimschitz; 196/1938; 479/1938; 31/1940; 92/1946; 397/1947; 615/1964.

KHM-Archiv, Direktionsakten, 354/KL/1939, 19/KL/1940, 68/KL/1941.

OeStA/AdR, ZNsZ, Gauakt 179.197, Bruno Grimschitz.
OeStA/AdR, UWK, BMU, Personalakten, Bruno Grimschitz.

GND: 129655422

VIAF: 38004181

Wikidata: Q24084801

Gussenbauer, Hildegard

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:40:02 +0000

Gussenbauer, Hildegard Leonhard Weidinger Fri, 03/05/2021 - 16:34

Hildegard Gussenbauer

17 February 1891 Prague – 25 August 1953 Vienna

Hildegard Gussenbauer, daughter of the surgeon Carl Ignatz Gussenbauer, was an art broker, consultant and dealer in Vienna. After her father was appointed head of the 2nd Surgical University Clinic in 1894 as the successor to Theodor Billroth, the family moved from Prague to Vienna. Gussenbauer had private tuition at home until she went to secondary school. She later attended drawing and modelling courses in the studio of Emma Schlangenhausen, had lessons in applied art with the architect Othmar Leixner von Grünberg and completed training as a lacemaking teacher. Her knowledge of art history was expanded through visits to museums in various European countries. She was a member of the Verein der Freunde Ostasiatischer Kunst und Kultur in Wien (Association of Friends of East Asian Art and Culture in Vienna). In 1930 she travelled to the USA. She worked after 1922 as an "art consultant for home decor", dealing in this function with interior furnishing, designs and consultancy and mediating in interior design questions. She also painted furniture, checked valuations and the authenticity of artworks, liquidated estates and established contacts between private collectors and museums. She never married but must have been financially secure on account of her family, because – as she herself stated – the revenue from her activities did not cover her living expenses. At the same time, she emphasized the importance for her work of her wide-ranging contacts in numerous countries. She was a licensed art dealer from mid-1939, working exclusively from her apartment at Skodagasse 9 in Vienna's 8th district and then, from mid-1941, Jacquingasse 31 in the 3rd district. She also used the latter apartment for exhibitions. She had a large house and property in the country (probably in Oberverlach, Carinthia). She was a member of the designer, art publisher and art dealer section of the Reichskammer der bildenden Künste (Reich Chamber of Fine Arts) but was not obliged to join the Reichsschrifttumskammer (Reich Literature Chamber) on account of her minimal work as a writer. In the later phase of the war she claimed to have been involved above all with furnishing houses for bombed-out and young families in both the ruined cities and remote mountain regions throughout the entire Reich, where she also acquired interior furnishing items and folk art. In 1940 she travelled to the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. She did not leave the Roman Catholic church during the Nazi era but held a NSDAP membership card for the Breitenfeld section. She repeatedly confirmed her loyalty to the regime with reference to her efforts to preserve German culture. She belonged to the Deutscher Schulverein Südmark and the Deutsch-Österreichischer Alpenverein and owned a gun licence. She also tried to sell artworks for the "Sonderauftrag Linz". Her name appears in connection with The Art of Painting by Vermeer: she was in contact with Karl Haberstock and in March and April 1939 unsuccessfully offered to broker its sale. The Museum für Völkerkunde (Museum of Ethnology, now Weltmuseum Wien) also acquired some objects from Gussenbauer during the Nazi era, whose provenance could not be determined. Her business licence for the art trade expired in 1951, two years before her death.

Keywords

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Susanne Hehenberger/Monika Löscher (Hg.), Die verkaufte Malkunst. Jan Vermeers Gemälde im 20. Jahrhundert (= Schriftenreihe der Kommission für Provenienzforschung 4), Wien-Köln-Weimar 2013, URL: doi.org/10.7767/boehlau.9783205789611.

Archives

Berufsvereinigung der bildenden Künstler Österreichs (Wien, Schloss Schönbrunn), Archiv, Unterlagen zu Hildegard Gussenbauer.

WStLA, Historische Meldeunterlagen, Meldeauskunft Hildegard Gussenbauer.

Hamel, Oskar

acolono — Thu, 03 Sep 2020 14:40:02 +0000

Hamel, Oskar Leonhard Weidinger Fri, 03/05/2021 - 16:37

Oskar Hamel

5 May 1889 Vienna – 28 February 1946 Vienna

Until 1921, Oskar Hamel was an officer and then senior officer in the Vienna Provincial Tax Office before turning to antiques and starting an independent business in 1923. He also collected coins and stamps. He joined the NSDAP in May 1933 and remained a member during the time it was banned. In 1937 he also joined the Vaterländische Front (Fatherland Front). Even before the annexation he worked with Karoline Nehammer in her antiques business at Piaristengasse 11 in Vienna's 8th district. In 1943 he registered his own sole proprietorship at the same address. In 1940 he became a court-sworn expert and in 1943 assessor in the art department of the Dorotheum. In 1942 he and Nehammer acquired Burg Seebenstein near Wiener Neustadt from the Prince of Liechtenstein and established a furniture depot in Palais Auersperg in Vienna. Hamel did business with the Special Representatives Hans Posse and Hermann Voss and was also a purchaser for Franz Josef II of Liechtenstein and his art consultant Gustav Wilhelm. In 1945 he appeared before the Vienna Volksgericht together with his business partner Karoline Nehammer and her brother Rudolf Prinz on suspicion of illegal enrichment (§ 6 of the War Criminals Act). Hamel was accused of having acquired artworks and valuables goods at auctions, which had been seized from removal goods, and to have profited from enforced sales by persecutees and in that way of having increased his assets during the Nazi period thirteenfold. Hamel died in custody before he was brought to trial and sentenced.

Provenance research regularly deals with objects acquired by museums from Hamel. For example, artworks belonging to Isidor and Jenny Mautner, which had been acquired in 1938 und 1939 through Oskar Hamel by the Städtische Sammlungen Wien, were restituted to the heirs. In other cases the original provenance has still to be clarified.

Keywords

Antiques business

Art dealership

Patriotic Front member

6 January 2019

Publications about the person / institution

Gabriele Anderl, “Am Wiener Platz“. Schlaglichter auf die Rolle des Wiener Kunsthandels während der NS-Zeit, in: Gabriele Anderl/Alexandra Caruso (Hg.), NS-Kunstraub in Österreich und die Folgen, Innsbruck-Wien-Bozen 2005, 171–211.

Esther Tisa Francini, Liechtenstein und der Internationale Kunstmarkt 1933–1945, Veröffentlichungen der Unabhängigen Historikerkommission Liechtenstein Zweiter Weltkrieg. Historischer Verein für das Fürstentum Liechtenstein, Vaduz-Zürich 2005, 182–188.

Archives

BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K. 42, PM Nehammer-Prinz, Lilli (Oskar Hamel).

GISA Servicestelle, Magistratsabteilung 63 der Stadt Wien, Firmenblatt Oskar Hamel.

OeStA/AdR, ZNsZ, Gauakt 3770, Oskar Hamel.

WStLA, M. Abt. 119, A41, VEAV 618, 1. Bez., Oskar Hamel.
WStLA, Volksgericht, A1, Vg Vr 2351/45, Oskar Hamel, Rudolf Prinz, Karoline Nehammer.