Hedwig Ullmann

Hedwig Frida Ullmann, née Nathan, (born November 2, 1872, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany; died 1945, Melbourne, VIC, Australia) was a German Jewish art collector and refugee .^[1]

Life

Hedwig Ullmann (née Nathan) was the wife of Albert Ulmann (1962-1912) and the sister of Leopold Siegfried Nathan et Dr. jur. Hugo Nathan.^[2] Ullmann's eldest son moved to Milan,Italy, in 1929.

Nazi persecution

When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Ullmann and her family were persecuted due to their Jewish heritage. Her youngest son and his family fled Germany in 1935 and settled in Milan.^[1] Ullmann emigrated to Milan on 25 May 1938^[1] and to Australia after that. In 1938, Nazi anti-Jewish laws required German Jews to register assets above a certain value, causing Hedwig Ullmann and her two adult sons to lose much of their art collection.^[3][4]

Claims for restitution of the Ullmann art collection

In 2013 a provenance research project at the Historisches Museum Frankfurt resulted in the restitution of the painting “Sommer (Frau und Junge)” (Summer (Woman and Boy)) by Hans Thoma to the Ullmann heirs.^[5]

In 2017 The German food processing company Dr. Oetker announced that it would restitute a Nazi-looted painting from its corporate art collection to Ulmann's heirs.^[6][7][8] Oekter's decision to restitute the painting without forcing the family to launch a lawsuit was praised in the press.^[9]

In 2020 Malcolm Gladwell dedicated an episode of his Revisionist History podcast to the story van Gogh's Vase with Carnations, which Ulmann owned prior to World War II.^[10] They sold the van Gogh before fleeing Germany for Australia to escape the Nazis, and the painting eventually arrived at the Detroit Institute of Arts. When the Ullmann family, which had changed its name to Ulin, located the painting, they requested it be returned, but the museum refused. Gladwell is critical of the museum's position, stating "It was impossible to be a German Jew after Kristallnacht and to imagine you were safe". However the Detroit Institute of Arts refused restitution.^[11]

Ullmann died in 1945 in Australia. Her heirs are still searching for artworks that had belonged to her before the Nazis.^[12]

References

1. "CLAIMS RESOLUTION TRIBUNAL In re Holocaust Victim Assets LitigationCase No. CV96-4849" (PDF). CLAIMS RESOLUTION TRIBUNAL.
2. "Hedwig Frida Ullmann". geni_family_tree. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
3. "Sotheby's Old Master & Early British Paintings / Lot 229". Archived from the original on 2023-02-04. Albert Ullmann died in 1912 and left behind his widow and their two sons, who had to flee Germany for Italy during the 1930s due to Nazi persecution. By decree in 1938, the Nazi regime required all Jews who resided within the Reich, or who were nationals of the Reich and held assets above a certain value, to register these assets. Hedwig Ullmann and her two adult sons was forced to do so in 1938 in Milan and, as a result, lost substantial parts of their art collection. In 1939, Hedwig and her sons fled Europe and settled in Melbourne, Australia.
4. "Ullmann, Hedwig | Proveana". www.proveana.de. Retrieved 2023-02-04. Verkauf von Teilen der Kunstsammlung zur Finanzierung der Reichsfluchtsteuer und Judenvermögensabgabe.(1938)
5. "Art objects from Jewish collections at the Historisches Museum Frankfurt | Proveana". www.proveana.de. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
6. Neuendorf, Henri (2017-01-11). "Dr. Oetker Restitutes Nazi-Looted Painting". Artnet News. Retrieved 2023-01-29. Frühling im Gebirge/Kinderreigen by Hans Thoma was acquired by the Jewish collector couple Albert and Hedwig Ullmann when they bought the Villa Gerlach estate in Frankfurt am Main at the end of the 19th century, in a deal that included the property's inventory of artworks. Following her husband's death in 1912, Hedwig Ullmann was forced to sell her art collection under duress amid the Nazi persecution of Jews before fleeing Germany in 1938. The artwork was subsequently bought at auction by the son of founder August Oetker and chief executive at the time Rudolf-August Oetker in 1954.
7. "10 January 2017: Rudolf-August Oetker Collection to return painting by Hans Thoma to the family of Hedwig Ullmann". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2023-01-31.
8. Hickley, Catherine (2017-03-14). "German Art Collectors Face a Painful Past: Do I Own Nazi Loot?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-02-02.
9. Kaplan, Isaac (2017-03-08). "Dr. Oetker Is Showing the World What to Do With Nazi Looted Art". Artsy. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
10. "Hedwig's Lost Van Gogh | Revisionist History". Pushkin Industries. Retrieved 2023-01-29.
11. "Welcome to lootedart.com". LootedArt.com. 2023-02-04. Archived from the original on 2023-02-04. Retrieved 2023-02-04. This episode of Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History podcast is dedicated to Vase with Carnations by Vincent Van Gogh, now in the Detroit Institute of Arts and once in the collection of Hedwig Ullmann of Frankfurt, until she was forced to flee Germany and sell her art collection. The painting is not an important work of Van Gogh and languished in storage in Detroit for years as a painting of little artistic value. Yet when the Ullmann family found it, Detroit fought tooth and nail to keep it and now sells 'Vase with Carnations' soap and socks in its museum shop. He explores how the provenance hid the painting's real history and why Detroit behaved as it did.
12. "Search | Lost Art Database". www.lostart.de. Retrieved 2023-01-31.