Michael Berolzheimer

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Michael Berolzheimer (born January 22, 1866 in Fürth ; died June 5, 1942 in Mount Vernon , New York ) was a German entrepreneur , lawyer and art collector .

Life

Michael Berolzheimer was the son of the Fürth pencil manufacturer Heinrich Berolzheimer , whose company also flourished in the USA. He studied law, received his doctorate and established himself as a lawyer. Among his clients were the Pinakothek in Munich and the German Orient Society . In 1902 he married Melitta Schweisheimer (* 1867), née Dispecker, and in 1904 moved with her and her two children to Untergrainau near Garmisch-Partenkirchen .

Berolzheimer was very wealthy because of the company ownership. He was interested in art and trained to become an outstanding graphics expert. In 1895 he bought the Boguslaw Jolles collection from Hugo Helbing . He became a member of the Munich Museum Association, founded in 1905, and was elected its treasurer. As a member of the purchasing committee of the Alte Pinakothek and the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung , he helped shape the development of their collections. He organized patronage donations for the acquisitions of these museums and set up a foundation himself for the benefit of the Bavarian State Painting Collections .

Berolzheimer collected printmaking and eventually owned around 600 pieces of graphics as well as around 800 hand drawings by Dutch, Italian baroque painters and from German Romanticism, including an oil sketch of the poor poet by Carl Spitzweg .

After the transfer of power to the National Socialists in 1933, Berolzheimer hesitated for a long time to evade the persecution of the German Jews. When he fled via Switzerland to the USA in 1938, he had to leave the collection of hand drawings behind, as it had been declared a national cultural asset by Ernst Wengenmayr, an employee of the Munich art dealer Adolf Weinmüller , who specializes in Aryanization . Berolzheimer's stepson Robert Schweisheimer was forced to sign a contract by Weinmüller, and the paintings and sculptures could still be auctioned by Weinmüller in 1938, the auction of the graphics then took place in March 1939. Berolzheimer received nothing from the proceeds from the auctions. On the contrary, after the Reichspogromnacht in November 1938, a Jewish property tax of RM 80,000 was imposed on the Berolzheimer family . His property in Grainau was also Aryanized.

The poor poet (sketch)

After the end of the war, Berolzheimer's heirs tried to return the stolen art objects , which began in 1950 with the handover of a dozen graphics, including sheets by Bonaventura Genelli , from the municipal gallery in the Lenbachhaus , followed by returns from the Germanic National Museum in Nuremberg and the Kurpfälzisches Museum in Heidelberg , but the initiatives petered out with the total refusal of the Vienna Albertina .

The family gave up further investigations during the 1950s as they appeared hopeless. It was not until the Washington Declaration on Looted Art in 1998 that research by museums into the provenance of their holdings began to move again . After the legal succession among the heirs was finally clarified in 2009, the Albertina returned 29 drawings in 2010 that it had bought in 1939. The Kupferstichkabinett Berlin returned 28 drawings, both bundles were documented in a catalog in 2011 and 2012 and auctioned on behalf of the heirs.

Fonts

  • Oscar and Cäcilie Graf , painter-etcher: catalog of their etched, lithographed and monotyped work . Munich: Helbing, 1903

literature

  • Michael G. Berolzheimer (Ed.): Michael Berolzheimer: 1866 - 1942; his life and legacy. MG Berolzheimer, Stockton, Calif. 2014, ISBN 978-3-00-047128-5
  • Ira Mazzoni: Expelled. The patron's collection is being reconstructed bit by bit. Review. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , February 14, 2015, p. 23.
  • Galerie Arnoldi-Livie: 29 drawings from the Michael Berolzheimer Collection restituted by the Albertina. Arnoldi-Livie Gallery, Vienna 2010.
  • Galerie Arnoldi-Livie: Michael Berolzheimer Collection II: 24 drawings restituted by the Kupferstichkabinett Berlin. Munich 2012.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Berolzheimer, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer and art collector
DATE OF BIRTH January 22, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Fuerth
DATE OF DEATH June 5, 1942
Place of death Mount Vernon (New York)