LOST ART, LIVING STORIES
The Adler family's extensive art collection demanded a deep dive into its history. Sometimes, it's the small stories that help clarify the bigger picture, making it more concrete and relatable. You'll find some of these stories below.
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Several works by Josef Scharl were included in the Adler art collection. However as far as it is known, the only work of art that Emilie Adler was allowed to take with her to Israel in March 1939 is the portrait of her husband Karl Adler made in 1935 by the Munich painter Josef Scharl (1896-1954).
The portrait was thought to be lost, until…
During a family gathering over video-call to discuss the project, the great-granddaughter who initiated the project showed a picture of the portrait thought to be lost. Soon after the meeting was over, she received an email from two granddaughters of Karl and Emilie who remembered having seen such a portrait hanging in their parents' home. When the parents passed away, the large (74 x 89 cm) painting had been packed and stored. The two granddaughters were able to find it, in excellent condition and with the Joseph Scharl signature clearly visible on the bottom right.
The family is considering donating this unique portrait to a museum or otherwise leveraging its finding to tell the story of Karl and Emilie Adler and their art collection.
They were accompanied by Dr. Ernst Neumann, Director of the German Art Exhibition in the Maximilianeum museum in Munich. He examined the works of art and furniture and selected the works considered to be of cultural value.
The confiscation protocol states that Karl Adler had died "a week ago" and that Emilie Adler's sister, Luise Silbermann, was present during the Gestapo visit. A framed coloured drawing by Max Slevogt is mentioned as number 3 in the confiscation protocol.
Consequently, the artworks were taken to the Bavarian National Museum in Munich from which some continued to other museums, others sold.
Max Slevogt, German Eagle and English Lion, 1900,
Signed and dated u. r.: M. Slevogt 1900, chalk, 24 x 18.5 cm
As part of 'The Karl and Emilie Adler Collection Project' research, this painting was located in the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, where it appears in the online catalogue under the title “Doctor Examination”. A handwritten caption on the backside of the painting sealed the finding: "Slevogt: "Dtsch. Adler u engl. Löwe" Zchg. 450".
The museum is in the process of returning legal ownership to the family, who have expressed their interest in donating the artwork or presenting it in relevant exhibitions.
The Munich sculptor Konstantin Frick (1907-2001), also a friend of the Adlers, confirmed to the Restitution Chamber at the Munich District Court on August 13, 1958, that several paintings by Leo Putz had been owned by the Adler couple. He stated that all were "dragged away" or stolen by the SS from the Adler apartment by the Secret State Police in Munich on November 28, 1938.
Leo Putz, "Lady in the Park (Schleißheimer Park)", 1903, as photographed in 1916 in the living room of the Adler home, Hochleite 21, Munich.
Dame im Park, Leo Putz, 1903, as appeared in the auction catalogue
In this story, the seemingly perfect evidence was not enough:
The research into selected databases yielded that the painting was sold on October 21, 1995, at the auction house Nagel, Stuttgart in the auction "Paintings, Graphics, Sculptures, Arts and Crafts" with the lot number 1, for €29,423. It has not yet been possible to establish who the buyer was.
The Adlers owned several pieces of antique furniture, including three particularly valuable cabinets crafted in the 1600s and 1700s. These impressive cabinets stood 2.5 metres tall and featured distinctive pearwood curves alongside other decorative elements in the style of the Baroque and Renaissance periods.
Emilie’s niece, Sophie Johanna Mayer, testified in 1964 that the Secret State Police in Munich had confiscated two of the three antique cabinets in her aunt's apartment; some other items were forcibly sold or attempted to be sold. Since the middleman was unable to sell the third antique cupboard and Emilie Adler had already fled to Israel, Sophie Johanna Mayer decided to keep the cupboard for her aunt.
Interior photograph of the Adler house at Hochleitestr. 21,
with a two-door oak cupboard in the background
The whereabouts of these cabinets could not be fully clarified. However, the search for them revealed a much sadder story:
Karl Adler's sister Paula Mayer, née Adler was married to the Mainz-born merchant Julius Mayer. The couple had two daughters, Sophie Johanna and Elisabeth Charlotte. In December 1907, the family moved from Mainz to Munich, where Julius Mayer worked as commercial director at the Adler bedfeather factory run by his wife's brothers, Max and Karl Adler.
In November 1941, Julius and Paula Mayer were sent to the "Home for Jews" in Berg am Laim together with their two daughters. Julius Mayer died there on March 23, 1942. Paula Mayer was able to escape together with her two daughters in July 1942.
From here, the family’s paths and fates diverged:
Paula hid together with her younger daughter Elisabeth Charlotte in an attic of acquaintances in Deggendorf until spring 1944. In March 1944, the two women - Paula and her daughter Elisabeth Charlotte, took their own lives. They threw themselves off a bridge into the Danube.
The elder daughter Sophie survived by hiding in Lenggriess, Bavaria, where she was hidden by the sisters Marie Dora Letnar and Rosa Mayer. After the end of the war, she returned to Munich and worked as a doctor. When she appeared at Emilie Adler's restitution proceedings in 1964 at the age of 66, she stated that she still owned the antique cupboard.
It could not be fully explained how she managed to keep the cupboard safe during the war, while she herself only just survived persecution. Dr. Sophie Mayer died in Munich on July 2, 1997.
Adler's frequent mentions of transactions for Alfred Kubin's works suggests Kubin entrusted him with sales. Adler leveraged his good connections in Munich's art scene with the intention of raising awareness to Kubin’s art and reputation. Kubin also gifted the Adlers many works, for example the drawing "The tired Wanderer" ("Der müde Wanderer") and also what Adler referred to as a "beautiful paper art” (“wunderschönes Blatt") for their silver wedding anniversary. This drawing had been in the Adler collection since October 1927. It is believed to be one of the works that the National Socialists either unlawfully deprived Emilie Adler of before her flight to Israel in March 1939, or that she was forced to leave behind in Munich.
The letters serve as a testament to an intense and warm relationship marked by mutual respect and trust. Adler consistently addresses Kubin as "Esteemed Master Kubin" or "Esteemed friend and Master Kubin" at the outset of his letters, while Kubin refers to Adler as a "dear friend." Additionally, Kubin affectionately mentions Adler's wife as the "beautiful Empress Emilie". In their letters, Adler shared with Kubin the details of their travels in Europe, and on several occasions, the couple, along with other family members, visited and stayed with Kubin at his Zwickledt home in Austria.
Susi Adler (the eldest daughter of Karl and Emilie, who later married Erich Glas) and Alfred Kubin, Zwickledt, Austria, 1927
In his last surviving letter from Adler to Kubin, dated July 27, 1933, Adler tells his friend of the family's plans to emigrate to Israel. This letter is what revealed that as early as July 1933, just a few months after the National Socialists came to power, the family had decided to emigrate to emigrate to Israel. The five Adler children did arrive in Israel in the 1930s, but Karl and Emilie did not join them in the end, for reasons that remain unknown. Karl was murdered in Dachau in November 1938, and soon after, Emilie fled Germany.
Pages from the personal correspondence between Karl Adler and Alfred Kubin