Gustav Ucicky

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ucicky (1930)

Gustav Ucicky - actually Učický ( pronunciation : [ uˈtʃitski: ]; * July 6, 1899 in Vienna , † April 26, 1961 in Hamburg ) was a German-Austrian film director. He is considered the illegitimate son of the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt .

life and work

Gustav Ucicky was the son of the unmarried, Prague- born Maria Učická (1880–1928) and the Austrian painter Gustav Klimt. Maria Ucicka was one of Gustav Klimt's models. Klimt's fatherhood has often been questioned in the past. Probably Gustav Ucicky himself commissioned the writing expert Michael Tomek in 1925 to prepare an expert opinion on the correspondence from Gustav Klimt to Maria Ucicka. The expert opinion showed that all letters came from the same author. In July 1899, a few days before Gustav Ucicky was born, Klimt wrote to Maria Ucicka: “I dearly wish that everything went well and quickly”. The correspondence can be reconstructed until 1916. Maria Ucicky, as she was officially called in Austria, died at the age of 47 and was buried on January 6, 1928 in the Hietzinger Friedhof in Vienna, where Klimt had been buried in another part ten years earlier; her son Gustav was buried in his mother's grave in 1961.

Gustav Ucicky grew up with his mother and grandmother in Vienna. He was a student at the Norbertinum, after which he began an apprenticeship at the Austro-Hungarian Military Geographical Institute in Vienna . The training did not meet the wishes of Ucicky, who dreamed of an acting career. In 1916 he auditioned for the first time at Sascha-Film as a drama student, but the attempt was unsuccessful. Ucicky got a job in the Sascha film laboratory. Shortly afterwards he pursued a new goal, he wanted to become a cameraman. Ucicky was lucky because Hans Theyer, Sascha-Film's chief cameraman, had just fired his assistant cameraman. A little later, the talented Ucicky got his own camera to film the funeral of Emperor Franz Josef.

In 1917 Ucicky was withdrawn to the military in Salzburg. After a short basic training, he was sent back to Vienna to work as a cameraman in the war press headquarters. His area of ​​operation was the so-called home front. He was assigned to Emperor Karl as a "body cameraman" and accompanied him on state visits. He was probably the cameraman or the director of Heldenkampf in Snow and Ice .

After the First World War, Ucicky continued to work for Sascha-Film . Ucicky made his debut as first cameraman in 1919 with “The Lady with the Black Glove”. In the post-war period, Ucicky not only made films for Sascha, but also for Rexa and Veritas-Film GmbH. In 1921 Ucicky signed up for Sascha-Film - in the years that followed, numerous films were made under the direction of Michael Kertesz. On December 23, 1923, Ucicky married the then 16-year-old Hilde Ptak, and in 1924 they moved into an apartment in Buchleitengasse in Vienna's 18th district. The actress called herself Betty Bird from 1928 . Ucicky first appeared as a director in 1926. Together with Karl Hans Leiter, Walter Reisch and Artur Berger, he directed the love drama Die Pratermizzi . In 1927 Ucicky was entrusted with the direction of Tingel-Tangel and in the same year with the love film Café Elektric , set in a criminal environment , which gave Marlene Dietrich and Willi Forst their first leading roles.

In 1928 Ucicky moved to Munich, where he was engaged for two films. They moved to Berlin at the end of 1928. Ucicky aroused the interest of Ufa and took over the direction of The Prisoner from Stambul . However, he celebrated his directorial debut in Berlin with the educational film Hereditary Tricks. The fight for the new sex produced by Hom AG. The film became a huge success. After he initially light entertainment films had turned, he was inspired by the 1930 ethnically dominated UFA Alfred Hugenberg Clamp for "patriotic" productions. After Das Flötekonzert von Sans-souci (1930) with Otto Fee in the role of Frederick II of Prussia and Yorck (1931), it was above all the submarine film Morgenrot (1933) that glorified German soldiers Ucicky became known.

Gustav Ucicky was one of the leading directors during the Nazi era . After Das Mädchen Johanna (1935) and the successful literary adaptations The Broken Krug (1937) based on Heinrich von Kleist and Der Postmeister (1940) based on Alexander Puschkin , Ucicky directed the anti-Polish propaganda film Heimkehr in 1941 with Paula Wessely in the lead role. Ucicky is said to have spoken out against the production of Homecoming at the beginning . Between 1933 and 1957 thirteen other films were made from the collaboration with the screenwriter Gerhard Menzel , which by the end of the war mostly had a clear propagandistic content in the sense of National Socialism . Because of his directorial work in this film, Ucicky was banned from working for both Germany and Austria after the end of the war , which was lifted for Austria in July 1947, because they did not want to do without his formal skills.

Gustav Ucicky burial place

After the Second World War, Ucicky's direction made shallow entertainment films revolving around emotional distress, including with Paula Wessely in Cordula 1950. In 1957 he married Ursula Kohn, who was his assistant director on several films. Ucicky died on April 26, 1961 in Hamburg and was buried on May 3, 1961 in Vienna at Hietzinger Friedhof (group 57, no. 124).

Widow Ursula Ucicky

Ursula Ucicky was born in Cottbus in 1922 as the daughter of the Jewish cloth manufacturer Heinrich Kohn (1867–1945). The factory in Forst / Lausitz and the family's assets were confiscated during the Nazi era. Ursula Kohn was able to go into hiding in Hamburg; their makeshift accommodation was bombed out in 1944. After the liberation of Hamburg by the British, Ursula Kohn u. a. to England, later to Israel. Returning to Hamburg in 1956, she met Gustav Ucicky (marriage in 1957).

Ursula Ucicky inherited “a respectable art collection” from Gustav Ucicky in 1961, including looted art that he a. a. had acquired in the art trade and auction houses (Dorotheum) during the Nazi era: for example the Klimt painting Wasserschlangen II , which was owned by the manufacturer Jenny Steiner until 1938. In agreement with their heirs, the painting was sold in 2013 in the form of a private sale via Sotheby’s for a rumored 112 million US dollars and the proceeds were shared between the Steiner heirs and Ucicky, who thus fed the share capital of the non-profit Klimt Foundation she founded in 2013 .

In this foundation came u. a. four paintings and ten drawings. At Ursula Ucicky's request, Peter Weinhäupl, commercial director of the Leopold Museum in Vienna until the summer of 2015 , is the honorary board member, the art historian Sandra Tretter as managing director and the business scientist Hubert Weinhäupl. Eduard Lechner, professor of finance law at the University of Vienna , acts as the foundation auditor .

One of the four paintings brought in is the Klimt portrait of Gertrud or Gertha Löw or Loew (later Felsöványi), which she was unable to take with her when she fled Austria in 1939; furthermore, she had to leave behind six Klimt drawings that came into Ucicky's possession. Provenance research was carried out on the further fate of the painting and five of the drawings; In October 2013, the foundation announced that it would strive for a fair and equitable solution to the case in line with the foundation's purpose . Gertrud Felsöványi's son Anthony Stephen Felsovanyi died in autumn 2013 at the age of 99.

As was announced to the public on January 24, 2014, the Klimt Foundation, in agreement with the heirs to Felsöványi, set up an independent committee of legal experts (including the former President of the Administrative Court, Clemens Jabloner ) to examine the dossiers of provenance research and make a recommendation for the should submit further procedure. Since the foundation spoke of five drawings, it remained open what happened or should happen to the sixth drawing from Felsövanyi's property. After the provenance research, the commission under Clemens Jabloner should work out proposals for the further procedure by autumn 2014.

(See also Gustav Klimt .)

Films (selection)

literature

  • Christoph Brecht, Armin Loacker, Ines Steiner (eds.): Professionalist and propagandist. The cameraman and director Gustav Ucicky , Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-902781-41-3 .
  • Staging an inflated life - Gustav Ucicky . In: Elisabeth Büttner , Christian Dewald: "The daily burning". A history of Austrian film from its beginnings to 1945 . A project of the cooperative “Das Kino Co-op”, Vienna. Residence, Salzburg / Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-7017-1261-1 , pp. 316–353.
  • Gerald Trimmel: Homecoming. Strategies of a National Socialist Film . Eichbauer, Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-901699-06-6 (also diploma thesis at the University of Vienna 1992).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Sandra Tretter, Peter Weinhäupl (Ed.): "Chiffre: Sehnsucht 25." Gustav Klimt's correspondence to Maria Ucicka 1899–1916 (= Edition Klimt Research , Volume 1), Christian Brandstätter Verlag, Vienna 2014
  2. ^ Website friedhoefewien.at
  3. Armin Loacker: Childhood - youth - first professional experiences 1899-1918, in: Christoph Brecht, Armin Loacker, Ines Steiner (eds.): Professionalist and propagandist. The cameraman and director Gustav Ucicky, Vienna 2014
  4. Armin Loacker: Gustav Ucicky's career in the silent film era 1919–1929, in: Christoph Brecht, Armin Loacker, Ines Steiner (eds.): Professionalist and propagandist. The cameraman and director Gustav Ucicky, Vienna 2014
  5. ^ Elisabeth Orth: Two coats under the roof. In: diePresse.com . April 24, 2015, accessed June 19, 2019 .
  6. Christoph Brecht, Ines Steiner: Film analytical part of Ucicky's post-war films. Remodeling of proven genres. In: Christoph Brecht, Armin Loacker, Ines Steiner (eds.): Professionalist and propagandist. The cameraman and director Gustav Ucicky. Vienna 2014
  7. http://www.luckauer-juden.de/Namensverzeichnis.html#K
  8. Partnership perspectives. In: derStandard.at. January 24, 2014, accessed December 3, 2017 .
  9. Entry on the website of the University of Vienna .
  10. Thomas Trenkler: Klimt's “Wasserschlangen II” sold abroad , on the website of the daily newspaper Der Standard , Vienna, from September 24, 2013
  11. Olga Kronsteiner: When Klimt & Co donated , on the website of the daily newspaper Der Standard , Vienna, from September 27, 2013
  12. Olga Kronsteiner: Dry run on the Attersee , website of the daily newspaper Der Standard , Vienna, dated November 8, 2013
  13. Press release of the Foundation from October 23, 2013
  14. Olga Kronsteiner: Causa Felsövanyi: Fragrant poetry in the reading corner , in: Der Standard newspaper , Vienna, October 19-20, 2013, supplement album , and website of the paper from October 18, 2013
  15. Klimt Foundation: experts named for restitution issues. In: DiePresse.com. January 24, 2014, accessed January 7, 2018 .
  16. Olga Kronsteiner: Profitable Seitenwechsel , in: Der Standard daily newspaper , Vienna, June 28, 2014, Supplement Album , p. A5 and the paper's website from June 27, 2014