Otto Brill

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Otto Brill ( September 27, 1881 in Pardubitz , then Austria-Hungary - 1954 in London , United Kingdom ) was an Austrian chemist , industrialist and art collector . He was a partner in two galleries run by Lea Bondi - the Würthle Gallery in Vienna and the St. George's Gallery in London. He and his family were persecuted, expropriated and forced into emigration by the Nazi regime .

Life

Otto Brill came from a Bohemian family of manufacturers of Jewish provenance. His parents were Amalie geb. Thein (1855–1935) and Moritz Moses Brill (1848–1908), who moved to Vienna and built and managed a factory for leather drive belts in Leopoldstadt . Otto Brill had three sisters, Clotilde Terezie (1880), later married Schweiger, Wilhelmena (1884–1971), later married Loewenstein, and Elfriede Renata (1893–1925), later married Loewenstein. The two younger sisters became doctors. Otto Brill graduated from secondary school, became an engineer and completed a doctorate in technical chemistry at the Vienna University of Technology . He received his doctorate in 1905. He was particularly interested in physical chemistry and in this area he worked as a university assistant at various German universities after completing his doctorate. After the death of his father, he took over the management of the family business.

He married Livia geb. Gunszt, called Lilly (1895–1987), who came from Budapest. The couple had three children: Eva Renata (1922–2001), later Köckis-Stangl , Agatha Annemarie (1924–2015), later Sadler, and Hans Helmuth (1930–2001). After the annexation of Austria , on March 17, 1938, Otto Brill was  arrested by the Gestapo and the older daughter was expelled from school. He was threatened with deportation to the Dachau concentration camp . Within a few weeks, his factory in Taborstrasse was “ aryanized ”, the residential building in Oberen Donaustrasse was expropriated and other properties were confiscated. The three children were able to flee to England relatively quickly ; their parents followed in autumn 1938. They managed to bring at least some of Kokoschka and Schiele's works into exile. The extent of Brill's collection is difficult to estimate, but the main focuses were certainly Herbert Boeckl , with whom the family was personally friends, Kokoschka and Schiele, mostly works on paper . The NS authorities did not issue export permits for two drawings by Albin Egger-Lienz , for three studies by Moritz von Schwind , self-portraits by Anton Faistauer , Anton Hanak and Max Slevogt, and for two views of Vienna by Rudolf von Alt . In the summer of 1938, the Albertina applied to the responsible ministry for a purchase permit and then acquired the works mentioned. The provenance of a Boeckl sketchbook and a drawing by Boeckl's student Stefan Pichler , which are still in the Albertina’s possession, are still in dispute today .

His older daughter was involved in the exile movement Young Austria , where she met the journalist Georg Breuer and married him. The couple had a daughter, born in 1945. In the same year, she returned to Vienna with her husband and child. She became a sociologist and later remarried. The younger daughter stayed in England and worked at St. George's Gallery. She died in 2015. The son became a librarian and art teacher. He was also an art collector. He had at least three children and died in 2001.

restitution

In 2000 and 2002 a total of ten works of art from his collection were restituted to the descendants and heirs by the Albertina Graphic Collection in Vienna. The first eight works had inventory numbers 28028–28030 and 28035–28039. It turned out that the first restitution was incomplete and two of the four incomplete works also bore the collection stamp. These were reimbursed with a delay. The provenance of the other two works - a watercolor by Boeckl and a drawing by Pichler - was then and is still unclear, the Albertina refuses to publish them.

The gap between four works raised questions, which the artist Carola Dertnig addressed in the form of an artistic intervention. The slideshow was made as part of the exhibition Recollecting. Robbery and restitution shown at the MAK Vienna (December 2008 to February 2009).

literature

  • Sophie Lillie : What once was - Handbook of the expropriated art collections of Vienna , Vienna 2003, pp. 202-208 (Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer collection) and 1256-1258 (Paul and Nora Stiasny collection)
  • NU - Jewish magazine for politics and culture, issue 19, 2005

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Centropa: INVITATION TO THE PROMOTION OF OTTO BRILL , accessed on January 24, 2020
  2. ↑ Der Standard (Vienna): Kokoschka "stolen" twice , research by Olga Kronsteiner , June 10, 2018
  3. ^ Susanne Lichtmannegger: Kätzeis-Stangl, Eva, b. Brill . In: Brigitta Keintzel u. Ilse Korotin (Ed.): Scientists in and from Austria. Life - work - work . Böhlau, Vienna / Cologne / Weimar 2002, p. 388f.
  4. ^ MAK Vienna: Recollecting. Robbery and Restitution , accessed January 25, 2020
personal data
SURNAME Brill, Otto
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian chemist, industrialist and art collector
DATE OF BIRTH September 27, 1881
PLACE OF BIRTH Pardubice , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH 1954
Place of death London , UK