Baron Viktor Gutmann: Final Comments

19 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Sharing, The Holocaust

Tags

Bloch-Bauer, The Cold War, The Holocaust, Viktor Gutmann, Wilm Hosenfeld, World War II

f7018e5cc8940c87e4ce77b98ef8f220--gustav-klimt-landscape-gustav-klimt-art

Landscape by Gustav Klimt (Pinterest)

The above landscape is a favourite. The composition is masterful and so is the choice of colours and a remembrance of pointillism.

Today must be devoted to domestic affairs. Besides, I’m still sorting out files, throwing many documents away. They have lost their relevance. I wish to thank all of you for allowing me to visit your magnificent posts at a slower pace and to publish much less frequently.

100 The Tree of Life, Stoclet Frieze 1909

The Tree of Life by Gustav Klimt, 1909 (Google images)

The Vancouver Bloch-Bauer Family

This post contains more information on my friends and the Vancouver branch of the Bloch-Bauer family. I have edited my post to show that the Mr. Bloch-Bauer I met was Karl (Charles) David Bloch-Bauer. The gentleman I knew as Mr. Bloch-Bauer died of leukemia in 1968. In 1968, I was a PhD candidate at the University of British Columbia. The last time I saw Mr. Bloch-Bauer, my husband and I were entering a movie-house with two friends. Mr. Bloch-Bauer looked extremely ill and died in 1968. Members of the Vancouver Bloch-Bauer family were and are in the forest industry (Canfor), but Francis was a scientist, married to the exquisite Hélène, and Nelly is Dr. Nelly Auersperg.

I looked at my wedding book and found a card signed by the Gutmanns, wishing us the best. From the photographs I can identify no more than a handful of friends. After our honeymoon, at Wikaninnish Inn – the highway had not been built, David and I settled on Point Grey Road. The Ocean was at our feet and we had a marvellous view of English Bay. Those days are gone.

My story is accurate, but it is of a different flavor than versions told by the press. Adele Bloch-Bauer was my friends’ great-aunt, but the Gutmanns did not try to retrieve Gustav Klimt’s portraits and other paintings and sketches the family owned. What I remember is that the Nazis pillaged their Vienna home; that their father was executed by the Red Army; that Francis and his sister were / are scientists, that Baron Viktor Gutmann asked his wife to marry Josep Beppo Gattin and to erase all traces of their Jewish ancestry and that John Auersperg, a Prince, taught me the Viennese Waltz.

I am of course delighted that, after six decades, paintings and sketches that belonged to the Bloch-Bauer family were returned to their owners. Francis and Hélène’s children will live more comfortably. However, I cannot edit my memories fully. I can’t help thinking that it must have been horrible for Baron Viktor Gutmann to face an unjust death not knowing what would happen to his family. He was first and foremost a husband and a father.

To my knowledge, Francis and Nelly had been sent to Palestine, but in 1946, they were in today’s Croatia and Nelly was entering medical school. The Bloch-Bauers were in Vancouver before the World War II, but Baron Viktor Gutmann had returned to his homeland, Croatia. They immigrated in c. 1950.

I was told that Baroness Gutmann barely escaped internment and probable death in a concentration camp. A Nazi officer pulled her away from other detainees. If this is true, which I believe it is, was the officer punished? The German people suffered under the Nazi régime, and, when the war ended, Germany was split and a wall was built to divide Berlin. The Cold War had begun.

Actor Adrien Brody is still haunted by memories of the 2002 film The Pianist. Mr. Brody played the role of Polish pianist and composer Władysław Szpilman whose life was saved by Nazi officer Wilm Hosenfeld. Wilm Hosenfeld was imprisoned by the Red Army and died in captivity in 1952.

http://www.indiewire.com/2017/08/adrien-brody-interview-the-pianist-locarno-film-festival-1201864271/

Art endures, but can it redeem man’s inhumanity to man?

C’était un temps déraisonnable,
On avait mis les morts à table.

http://www.parolesmania.com/paroles_louis_aragon_82603/paroles_est-ce_ainsi_que_les_hommes_vivent_1368599.html FR
http://lyricstranslate.com/en/est-ce-ainsi-que-les-hommes-vivent-how-men-live.html EN

My love to everyone ♥

Yves Montand chante « Est-ce ainsi que les hommes vivent ? » (Louis Aragon)

: Wilm Hosenfeld (Wikipedia)

Luise Bloch-Bauer & Viktor Gutmann

16 Thursday Nov 2017

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Sharing, The Holocaust, Vienna Secession, War

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

Adele Bloch-Bauer, Baron Viktor Gutmann, Cashmere, Croatia, Dr. Nelly Auersperg, Erik Satie, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, Francis Gutmann, Gustav Bloch-Bauer, Gustav Klimt, The Holocaust, Vienna Secession

Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I by Gustav Klimt, 1907 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Allow me to return to an earlier post: Fauré & Ravel: Nostalgia, so I can finish telling the story of my long-lost friends, Francis and Hélène Gutmann. As you know, they had a great-aunt, Adele Bloch-Bauer, whose name was perpetuated by Gustav Klimt. Adele Bloch-Bauer was Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer‘s wife. Ferdinand commissioned a portrait of his wife from Gustav Klimt, a founding member of the fin de siècle Vienna Secession, an art movement linked to Art Nouveau, the Arts and Crafts Movement and the Jugendstil: japonisme and modernisme. Gustav Klimt completed the portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, in 1907. But there would be a second portrait of Adele: Adele Bloch-Bauer II, 1912.

Adele Bloch Bauer II by Gustav Klimt, 1912 (Google Images)

When I lived on the West coast, the Bloch-Bauer family had not retrieved the art masterpieces that had been confiscated from the Bloch-Bauer family by the Nazis, when Nazi Germany annexed Austria: the Anschluss (12 March 1938).

I had never heard of Maria Altmann, née Bloch-Bauer, my friends’ aunt who lived in California. Her search for pieces of Klimt’s legacy that belonged to the Bloch-Bauer family had not begun. Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer’s heirs owned five paintings executed by Gustav Klimt, one of which was the famous Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I, 1907, which Klimt created using gold leaf and silver.

Adele Bloch-Bauer died of meningitis, in 1925, and she and her husband, Ferdinand, never had children. Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer fled to Switzerland, but he lost everything and died in Zürich, in 1945. However, in his Will, he bequeathed his wife’s portrait and other pieces, a total of five, by Gustav Klimt, to at least three of the children born to his brother, Dr. (jur.) Gustav Bloch-Bauer (Bloch) whose wife was Therese Bloch-Bauer (Bauer). The names were joined. Gustav Bloch-Bauer (Bloch) died on 2 July 1938, the year Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany. He and Therese’s children were:

Karl (Charles) David Bloch-Bauer;
Leopold Bloch-Bauer / Bentley;
Robert Bloch-Bauer / Bentley;
Mrs. Maria Altmann;
Baroness Luise Gutmann, wife of Croatian Baron Viktor Gutmann von Gelse und Belišće.

The first persons, whose name comes to mind in this saga are Gustav Bloch and Therese Bauer. The two names, Bloch and Bauer, were joined. Another person is Mrs. Altmann (née Bloch-Bauer) who married Fritz Altmann, in 1937. Her husband was arrested and sent to Dachau concentration camp in the hope this would force his brother Bernhard Altmann, who had fled to Britain, to transfer his wealth to the Nazis. Fredrik (Fritz) Altmann was released and he and Maria Altmann found a refuge in the United States. Bernhard sent Mrs. Altmann a cashmere sweater, which is how cashmere was brought to the United States. The Altmann family first lived in Massachusetts, but moved to California.

Mrs. Altmann is the heroine, played by actrice Helen Mirren, of the film Woman in Gold (2015). Maria Altmann hired composer Arnold Shoenberg’s grand-son, E. Randol Schoenberg, portrayed by Ryan Reynolds in Woman in Gold, in her successful quest to retrieve the paintings by Gustav Klimt that belonged to the Bloch-Bauer family, but were confiscated by the Nazis.

The Bloch-Bauer Family in Vancouver

The remaining members of the Bloch-Bauer family settled in Vancouver, including Therese Bloch-Bauer (Bauer), Gustav’s widow and Ferdinand’s sister-in-law. They are Karl, Leopold, Robert, and Luise Bloch-Bauer, my friends’ mother and mother-in-law.

Members of the Vancouver branch of the Bloch-Bauer family changed their name to Bentley. Leopold Bloch-Bauer had married Antoinette Pick, so the name Pick was replaced by the name Prentice. I did meet a Mr. Bloch-Bauer. I believe the person I met was either Leopold Bloch-Bauer, Peter Bentley‘s father, or Karl (Charles) David Bloch-Bauer. The gentleman I met suffered from leukemia. So, I met Karl (Charles) David Bloch-Bauer.

Dr. Nelly Auersperg, b. Gutmann, enrolled in medical school at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, in 1946, where she studied for three years till 1949.

Dr. Nelly Auersperg, b. Gutmann in Belišće, Croatia, 2003.
On the right to her is Mr. Francis Gutmann (PhD), her brother.

http://www.croatia.org/crown/articles/10058/1/Nelly-Auersperg-distinguished-Canadian-scientist-educated-also-in-Zagreb-Croatia.html
(interview)

Croatia & the Principality of Auersperg

My friends surname is Gutmann. Luise Bloch-Bauer married Croatian Baron Viktor Gutmann von Gelse und Belišće. Baron Viktor Gutmann fled to his homeland, the current Croatia, where he believed he would escape the Holocaust. He did and he didn’t.

Baron Viktor Gutmann and his wife, Luise (Bloch-Bauer), were arrested by Ustaše, in 1943, and imprisoned. Baron Viktor Gutmann’s brother, Ernö, died at the Jasenovac Concentration Camp. Ironically, Viktor Gutmann, a survivor of the Nazi régime, was executed on 17 February 1946, in Zagreb, Croatia, by the Red army. He was an aristocrat and a capitalist, not a criminal and Nazi collaborator. (See Viktor Gutmann, Wikipedia.)

I was told that, fearing for the life of his family, Baron Viktor Gutmann had instructed his wife to marry their Italian and Catholic friend. This Italian friend could be Josep Beppo Gattin. To be certain that what I am writing is correct, I would have to speak with Dr. Nelly Auersberg or Hélène, whom I cannot find. However, I wish to point out that having remarried, Baroness Luise Gutmann was no longer known as a Bloch-Bauer. She was the wife of Josep Beppo Gattin. Francis Gutmann, her son, did not change his name.

I met Baroness Luise Gutmann. Hélène and I stopped by her house, a humble house, and she showed me a document signed by a member of the Strauss dynasty. I therefore associated the now deceased Baroness Gutmann with the Strauss family and the Viennese Waltz. She had entertained guests in her Vienna home to the music of the Strauss. Her son, Francis, married Hélène, a French-Canadian, and Nelly, Dr. Nelly Auersperg, married John Auersperg. Mr. Auersperg would be the prince and perfect gentleman who taught me the Viennese Waltz. The Gutmanns, Francis and Hélène went dancing on Saturday evening and I joined them. Nelly, Hélène’s sister-in-law, is a renowned scientist in her field: ovarian cancer research. (See Principality of Auersperg, Wikipedia.) Mr. Auersperg died on 17 September 2017.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/vancouversun/obituary.aspx?pid=186733550

Hélène probably lives in Montreal. She knows that I married David Walker. Hélène attended our wedding. I have found the pictures and the card she gave us, wishing us the best. We visited them at their home in the early 1970s. I also spent a few days with them after they bought their bungalow. They had also purchased a Blouin piano they and I loved. Francis was teaching at the University of Sherbrooke, Quebec, where I now live. They moved to Montreal.

I would love to see Hélène. We share the same family name. If she visited, she could give me suggestions regarding the decoration of my apartment. Her little house on the campus of the University of British Columbia was a jewel.

Love to everyone ♥

Landscape by Gustav Klimt (Pinterest)

The Kiss by Gustav Klimt, 1907/1908 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Frauenkopf by Gustav Klimt, 1917/1918 (Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz)

Erik Satie – Gymnopédie No.1

Dr. Nelly Auersperg, b. Gutmann

Kasyan Yaroslavovitch Golejzovsky’s Harlequin

11 Saturday Nov 2017

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Comedy, Commedia dell'arte

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Columbina, commedia dell'arte, Harlequin, jealousy, Kasyan Yaroslavovitch, La Princesse de Clèves, Pierrot, stock characters, the sad clown, zanni

KASYAN YAROSLAVOVITCH GOLEJZOVSKY 1892 Moscow – 1970 Moscow (Photo credit: Invaluable)

This mixed-media depiction of Harlequin, by Russian artist Kasyan Yaroslavovitch Golejzovsky, was sold at an auction, in Düsseldorf, Germany, on 9 November 2017. I congratulate its owners. I love this work of art for many reasons. For instance, movement is beautifully expressed. Would that I had the money to bid and buy at auctions. However, I visit, if only to see beautiful objects.

Harlequin is a zanno (zanni), a comic servant, who was introduced into the Commedia dell’arte by 17^th – century actor – manager Zan Ganassa (c. 1540 – c. 1584): Zan (=zanni) Ganassa. Commedia dell’ arte actors were professionals. They were provided with an outline of the comedy (called a canevas in French), where they played a role, always the same role, which they improvised. The Italians travelled to other countries. Ganassa was in Spain from 1574 to 1584. Paris had its Comédie-Italienne, and Harlequin was in 18^th– century London.

In the commedia erudita, however, actors used a script written by a playwright. Ben Johnson, Shakespeare, Molière and dramatists preceding them often drew their material from Plautus (254 BCE [Sarsinia, Umbria, Italy] – BCE 154)[1] and Terence (195 BCE [Carthage, current Tunisia] – 159 BCE [Greece or at sea]).[2] Roman dramatists Plautus and Terence wrote in Latin, but the vernacular, early forms of Italian, was also used by actors. However, Plautus and Terence, found their inspiration in Greek New Comedy (320 BCE to the mid 3^rdcentury BCE), from which they also borrowed. Molière‘s Miser (1668) is rooted in Plautus’ Aulularia.

Harlequin is perhaps the best-known of the commedia dell’arte’s zanni and one of its most celebrated characters. Harlequin always wears a costume. It is part of the mask, but behind the mask there is a man, or a woman. Until the creation of Pierrot, drawn from both pantomimes and the commedia dell’arte, the stock characters of the commedia dell’arte seemed what they appeared.

However, Pierrot, created in late 17^th– century France, by the Parisian Comédie-Italienne, is a sad clown, a mask wearing a mask. He entertains an audience, but he loves Columbina who loves Harlequin. This is love’s triangle, an impossible love that may feed on jealousy. As the 17^thcentury drew to a close in France, Madame de la Fayette[3] published La Princesse de Clèves, in which her heroine will not marry Monsieur de Nemours for fear he will stop loving her once his love is reciprocated. Jean Racine‘s Phèdre fails to save Hippolyte, whom she has falsely accused of trying to seduce her, when she learns Hippolyte claims to love Aricie. La Princesse de Clèves was published in 1678, the year after Phèdre was first performed.

Harlequin by George Barbier (Photo credit: Tumbler)

1024px-jean-lc3a9on_gc3a9rc3b4me_-_duel_after_a_masquerade_ball2

The Duel after the Masquerade by Jean-Léon Gérôme (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In this respect, he is perhaps the most enigmatic character of the commedia dell’arte, and the most human. Jealous love finds its best expression in a novel by Madame de La Fayette, La Princesse de Clèves (1678). But Molière’s Arnolphe, the blocking-character in The School for Wives, L’École des femmes, is jealous. The Gelosi (jealous) were also a commedia dell’ arte troupe, but jealous love is not associated with the Gelosi. In Britannica, we read that:

“The name was derived from the troupe’s motto, Virtù, fama ed honor ne fèr gelosi. (“We are jealous of attaining virtue, fame and honour”).[4]

Commedia dell’arte troupe, probably depicting Isabella Andreini and the Compagnia dei Gelosi, oil … CFL—Giraudon/Art Resource, New York (Photo credit: Britannica)

Conclusion

I will close by reminding my readers of the British John Rich’s harlequinades: tom-foolery and pandemonium. Unlike the clever, nimble and clownish British zanno Harlequin, Pierrot is mime‘s sad clown performed by Jean-Gaspard Deburau (Battiste), Jean-Louis Barrault (Baptiste), and less-acclaimed mimes. Jean-Louis Barrault is the star of director Michel Carné‘s 1945 film Les Enfants du Paradis (The Children of Paradise), one of cinema’s classics, written by Jacques Prévert. But is Picasso‘s family Harlequin “funny?” (See Arlecchino, Arlequin, Harlequin and Leo Rauth’s “fin de siècle” Pierrot in RELATED ARTICLES).

Stock characters must not deviate from their role, nor can actors. But masks tend to invite a response not intended in the manner a role is played.

Love to everyone ♥

RELATED ARTICLES

Pantalone and Molière’s Miser (20 November 2016)
George Barbier’s Fêtes galantes (13 July 2014)
Picasso’s Harlequin (3 July 2014)
Arlecchino, Arlequin, Harlequin (30 June 2014)
Leo Rauth’s “fin de siècle” Pierrot (27 June 2014)
Pantalone: la Commedia dell’arte (20 June 2014)

Sources and Resources

Denis Diderot, Paradoxe sur le comédien (c. 1773-1777), published in 1830. (Google) FR
Denis Diderot, Paradoxe sur le comédien, Wikipedia FR

____________________

[1] Plautus, Britannica (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plautus)
[2] W. Geoffrey Arnott, Terrence, Britannica (https://www.britannica.com/biography/Terence)
[3] In 1655, at the age of 21, already a salonnière, she married 38-year-old François Motier, comte de La Fayette, an ancestor to Gilbert Motier, marquis de Lafayette. She bore him two sons.
[4] Gelosi, Britannica: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Compagnia-dei-Gelosi

Claude Debussy : Clair de Lune, for Piano (Suite Bergamasque No. 3), L. 75/3

Pierrot et Harlequin Mardi Gras by Cézanne

Fauré & Ravel : Nostalgia

05 Sunday Nov 2017

Posted by michelinewalker in Music, Sharing, Son et image

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Adele Bloch-Bauer, Art Nouveau, Gabriel Fauré, Gustav Klimt, memories, Peter Schlosser, the Nazi, Vienna Secession

6abriel Fauré, Élégie in C Minor for Cello & Piano Op. 24 (1880 – 1883)

Girl with Peacock by Peter Schlosser, 1896 (Photo credit: fleurdulys)

Peter Schlosser was an Austrian artist, in the days of Art Nouveau, Jugendstil and the Wiener Secession (the Vienna Secession). I found a post about him, but no entry. This above painting is dated 1896.

Gustav Klimt and other artists founded the Wiener Secession in April 1897. Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer is dear to me because I was a friend of relatives, members in fact, of the Bloch-Bauer family. My friends were Hélène and Francis Gutmann. Francis, whose mother was a Bloch-Bauer, finished a PhD in physics, at the University of British Columbia, where I also completed a PhD. However, we had met in Victoria. I also met Mr. Bloch-Bauer, an uncle (I believe). He was an older gentleman at the time, the very late 60s. If my memory serves me well, he spoke French. Francis met his wife, my friend Hélène, in Montreal. He enjoyed playing the piano. The Nazis pillaged the family home. His brother-in-law, a prince, taught me the Viennese Waltz. Francis was born in Vienna and died in Montreal, in 2014.

https://beta.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/plundered-klimts-now-in-canada/article4143277/?ref=http://www.theglobeandmail.com&

Love to everyone ♥

Gabriel Fauré, Élégie in C Minor for Cello & Piano Op. 24

Paul Tortelier, violoncelle
Jean Hubeau, piano