Christine Kerry
Christine Kerry , mostly called Christl Kerry (born September 16, 1889 in Vienna , † December 23, 1978 in Altaussee ) was an Austrian painter and draftsman .
Live and act
Christine Kerry's Jewish grandparents and her parents, the doctor and chemist Richard Emil Kerry (* 1863 in Vienna, † October 19, 1896; private lecturer at the kk University of Vienna and head of the bacteriological laboratory of the kk agriculture ministry) and Emma von Dittel have been in Altaussee for summer retreat since 1885 and purchased a plot of land high above Altaussee at the foot of the Loser, on which they built Villa Kerry (Fischerndorf 74) in 1893 . In 1896 Richard Kerry bought the Frosch House in Altaussee (Puchen 14).
Christl Kerry spent every summer in Altaussee from her birth, but her school and study days in Vienna. After the early death of her father, she grew up in the care of her grandfather Emanuel Kerry. From 1937 she was permanently resident in Altaussee. One of the first guests at Villa Kerry from 1896 was the nineteen-year-old Fritz von Herzmanovsky-Orlando , whom the seven-year-old Christl connected and promoted. The two were secretly engaged and cultivated a lifelong friendship, in which Herzmanovsky-Orlando often visited Christine Kerry until his death in 1954. Kerry was engaged a second time to the American pianist John Powell , who studied piano and composition in Vienna and whom she also visited in the USA.
Arthur Schnitzler , whom Kerry met in Altaussee, was also a good friend . On September 25, 1916, she took him on a trip to the Gschwandtalm on the Loser, as Schnitzler noted in his diary. A photo also bears witness to this hike together. In the 1930s, the Kerrys opened a guesthouse in their villa, where numerous artists such as composers, painters, musicians, singers, writers and poets stayed as guests. This resulted in many friendships, often lasting decades, such as with the composers Gustav Mahler , Wilhelm Kienzl and Camillo Faust , the Klimt student Harald Peter Gutherz, the Bayreuth architect Erwin Gurlitt, the singer Elsa Jülich , the musician Michael Taube and the singer Joseph Schmidt .
She received her artistic training in painting around 1910 from Ferdinand Schmutzer , together with Katharina Wallner and Maximilian Liebenwein in Burghausen. Christine Kerry was an artist until she was ninety years old. Her creative work, in which she mainly made portraits and captured the landscape of the Ausseerland in drawings and watercolors , also included pencil and colored chalk drawings, etchings and lithographs
Kerry remained unmarried and childless. Her grave is in the local cemetery of Altaussee.
Survive in WWII
During the Nazi dictatorship , Christine Kerry escaped the Holocaust and expropriation despite her Jewish origins . Presumably on the intervention of her friend Ilse Tanzmeister, she was issued a letter of protection by the district captain of Styria, Armin Dadieu , which protected Christine Kerry and her mother Emma from expropriation and deportation. Nevertheless, shortly before the end of the war, she was interned in Linz for six weeks, but was released again.
Towards the end of the Second World War , the head of the Security Police and SD as well as head of the Reich Main Security Office, Ernst Kaltenbrunner, as well as numerous other high-ranking representatives of the Third Reich retired to Altaussee , where he and his lover Gisela von Westarp were in the Villa Kerry, which had been confiscated by the Gestapo resided. Kerry meanwhile had to live in her frog house . After Kaltenbrunner was arrested on May 12, 1945 at the Wildenseehütte in the Totes Gebirge , 76 kilos of gold, 10,000 gold coins and large stocks of foreign currencies were discovered and confiscated by the Americans in the kitchen garden of Villa Kerry .
Relationship to John Kerry
The brother of Christine Kerry's grandfather Emanuel Kerry, Benedikt Kerry, who had his original surname Kohn changed to Kerry, was the great-grandfather of the US politician and presidential candidate John Kerry .
Exhibitions
Little is known about Christine Kerry's exhibition activities. A memorial exhibition was only held after her death:
- 1979: Memorial exhibition in the Sparkasse Altaussee
Web links
- Altaussee Literature Museum
- Christine Kerry at basis–Wien.at
- Via Artis, station 5
- Der Altausseer No. 2, 2016: The Kerry – Villa, p. 25 (PDF)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Archive of the Altaussee Literature Museum, box K3 (PDF)
- ^ Salzburger Tagblatt of January 9, 1979: Christine Kerry to commemorate.
- ↑ intressenstein.com: Christine Kerry ; accessed on September 20, 2018
- ^ House directory of the judicial district of Aussee. Aussee 1900, p. 17.
- ^ Alois Mayrhuber: Artists in the Ausseerland. Ed .: Friedrich Langer. Styria Verlag, 1985, ISBN 3-222-11657-1 .
- ^ Literaturmuseum.at: Fritz von Herzmanovsky – Orlando ; accessed on September 20, 2018
- ^ Austria-Forum.org: Katharina Wallner ; Retrieved September 20, 1918
- ^ Anton Strobl: The years in the Führer’s home district. A regional historical documentation on the Nazi era in Ausseerland . 2013, Altaussee Literature Museum, ISBN 978-3-9512281-5-0
- ↑ Michael Garton: In Search of Ernst. Discovering the Unspoken Fate of the Königsgartens , Horsgate Verlag, Oxford, 2015.
- ↑ cia.gov: The Last Days of Ernst Kaltenbrunner ; accessed on September 20, 2018
- ↑ Spies, swindlers, treasure hunters. End of the war in Ausseerland 1945. Association "ARGE Ausseer Kammerhofmuseum", 2014, ISBN 978-3-00-043493-8
- ↑ a b kurier.at of February 3, 2013: Kerry's Austrian roots ; accessed on September 20, 2018
- ^ Salzburger Tagblatt of August 22, 1979: Kerry exhibition in the Sparkasse Altaussee.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Kerry, Christine |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Kerry, Christl |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Austrian painter and draftsman |
| DATE OF BIRTH | September 16, 1889 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vienna |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 23, 1978 |
| Place of death | Altaussee |