Helena Rubinstein

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Helena Rubinstein around 1930

Helena Rubinstein (born December 25, 1870 in Krakow , Austria-Hungary , as Chaja Rubinstein ; † April 1, 1965 in New York ) was an American cosmetics entrepreneur , pioneer of cosmetics development and patron of Polish origin.

Life

Helena Rubinstein was born as the eldest of eight daughters of the Jewish grocer Herzel "Horaz" Rubinstein and his wife Augusta (née Silberfeld, called "Gitte") in the predominantly Jewish district of Kazimierz Kraków . Her sisters were Pauline, Rosa, Regina, Stella, Ceska, Manka and Erna. She left school early at the age of 15. After turning down several marriage offers, she went to Vienna in 1894 , where she helped in the fur business of relatives. In 1896 she emigrated to Coleraine in Australia on the ship Prinzregent Luitpold and on the way there she chose the first name Helena Juliet instead of the Jewish-sounding Chaja.

In Australia she first worked as a saleswoman for her uncle. Three of her uncles already lived there. From her mother she received twelve jars of cream for cosmetic care in the distance, some of which she passed on to women farmers in Coleraine. In 1900 she moved to Toowoomba , where she was employed as the nanny of the Queensland Governor Lord Lamington. Her first own business idea was to import and sell the creams. Eventually, however, she started making these herself. In 1902 she opened Australia's first beauty salon in Melbourne . From 1901 she had worked in Melbourne and initially as a waitress in a tea salon. Based on lanolin , sesame and mineral oil, she made a preparation that she named Valaze (Hungarian for "gift from heaven").

It also sold creams imported from Poland , which mainly consisted of a mixture of herbs, almond oil and beef fat. This was a great success, especially since cosmetics were not widely used in Australia at the time and, with her delicate white skin, she was her best advertising medium. She also published her first beauty guide. In order to be able to develop her products further, she left Australia again and passed her business on to two of her sisters.

In Paris she visited the chemist Marcellin Berthelot , and dealt with nutritional science and facial surgery. Back in Sydney in 1907 Rubinstein met the American journalist Edward William Titus (1870–1952), who was also of Polish descent and was born as Arthur Ameisen in Podgórze. They married in London in 1908. The marriage resulted in two sons: Roy Valentine (1909–1989) and Horace Titus (1912–1958). Her husband also had two sons from his first marriage. During her first pregnancy, she founded a second salon in Wellington in 1908 and a third in the same year in Mayfair in London. In 1912, as a mother of two, she opened a fourth beauty salon in Paris. The family now lived in Paris. In 1913 a laboratory was set up in Saint-Cloud.

Emigration to the USA

Helena Rubinstein's birthplace in Krakow
Helena Rubinstein drawn by Paul César Helleu (1908)

In 1914, the family left Europe during the First World War and emigrated to the USA. Just a year later, she opened her fourth branch there with imported care products. By 1920 she developed her first line of cosmetics. From then on, the products she sold bore the name Helena Rubinstein . This brand name still exists today, over 80 years after the company was founded.

In 1928 she sold two-thirds of "Rubinstein Inc." for 7.3 million US dollars to the Lehman Brothers banking house . When the Great Depression its lowest point reached and the bank in 1929 was in financial difficulties, it acquired the entire complex back for just 1.5 million dollars. She returned to Paris extremely wealthy and devoted herself to her passion for art there. Well-known painters such as B. Matisse , Modigliani , Chagall or writers like Faulkner and Hemingway . She was portrayed by several well-known painters, including Roberto Montenegro (1941), Cândido Portinari (1939), Marie Laurencin (1934), Margherita Russo (1953), Pavel Tchelitchew (1934), Christian Bérard (1938) and Graham Sutherland (1957 ). These portraits became part of her art collection.

The Quai de la Béthune 24 building, which Helena Rubinstein had built in 1934 on the site of a 17th century city palace

Her first marriage was divorced in 1937 and the following year she married the Georgian Prince Artchil Gourielli-Techkonia (1897–1955), who was almost 30 years her junior. It was at this time that she began to compete with cosmetics entrepreneur Elizabeth Arden , which would last her life.

During the German occupation of France (1940–1944) in World War II , the National Socialist sculptor Arno Breker - presumably with the help of his friend Albert Speer - received Helena Rubinstein's luxury apartment on Île Saint-Louis (Quai de Béthune 24) which has now been " Aryanised " Available.

In 1953, Helena Rubinstein opened one of the largest factories that a woman had ever built, not far from New York. She soon had other factories in the UK, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Israel, Australia, Japan, Canada and South America.

The production process in the cosmetics empire of Rubinstein, known as extremely economical, was well rationalized. The entire requirement for cream, lotion and scented water for France, Scandinavia and the Benelux countries was produced by just four workers as early as 1964. The production of powder for this huge consumer market was fully automated and controlled by just one operator. As an innovative entrepreneur, she also broke new ground in marketing. Well-known designers and artists designed their elaborate packaging. Various writers wrote advertisements, brochures and the in-house magazine for them. Interior designers fitted out their beauty salons, which presented themselves to the visitors as true temples of art .

Until her death, her company comprised 100 branches in 14 countries with around 30,000 employees. She had more than $ 100 million in personal wealth.

Helena Rubinstein died on April 1, 1965 at the age of 94 in a New York hospital. Until shortly before her death, she had managed the company herself. She left her 121 heirs with the cosmetics empire she had built, as well as houses, jewelry and paintings. She bequeathed most of it to health care professionals because she regretted not becoming a doctor and had failed to develop cosmetics into medicine. The luxury brand Helena Rubinstein has been part of the L'Oréal Group, Paris , since 1988 .

Patronage

Rubinstein was considered a patron of the arts and sciences. She commissioned paintings, was portrayed by around 50 painters herself, collected art of all kinds and organized exhibitions for unknown painters. They donated travel grants to artists and art prize in France, established a fund to support art students and was in Tel Aviv , a Museum of Modern Art, the Helena Rubinstein Pavilion , built, today the Tel Aviv Museum of Art belongs. She set up a chair for chemistry at the University of Massachusetts and founded the Helena Rubinstein Foundation in 1953 , which continues to sponsor women scientists and since 1998, with the support of UNESCO, the Helena Rubinstein Prize, endowed with US $ 20,000 each year, to four women researchers forgives.

Movie

The Powder War , documentary, USA 2007 (The script was based on the book War Paint: Miss Elizabeth Arden & Madame Helena Rubinstein by Lindy Woodhead.)

literature

Non-fiction

Fiction

Web links

Commons : Helena Rubinstein  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h Marie-Sophie Carron de la Charrière-Lévy, Michèle Fitoussi, Mason Klein, et al .: Helena Rubinstein - L'aventure de la beauté . Éditions Flammarion, Paris 2019, ISBN 978-2-08-147920-3 , pp. 17-32 .
  2. ^ Claudia Lanfranconi, Antonia Meiners, "Kluge Geschäftsfrauen", Elisabeth Sandmann Verlag, ISBN 978-3-938045-22-0
  3. ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/17/obituaries/roy-v-titus-79-cosmetics-executive-and-philanthropist.html
  4. ↑ http://www.berliner-zeitung.de/archiv/wie-einst-helena-rubinstein-ist-heute-irena-eris-die-schoenheits-botschafterin-polens-es-gibt-keine-haesslichen-frauen,10810590 , 10722648.html
  5. ^ Jonathan Petropoulos: The Faustian Bargain - the art world in Nazi Germany . Oxford University Press US, 2000. ISBN 0195129644 page 233
personal data
SURNAME Rubinstein, Helena
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rubinstein, Chaja (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish-American cosmetics entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH December 25, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH Krakow , Galicia
DATE OF DEATH April 1, 1965
Place of death new York