Friedrich Bernhard Eugen "Fritz" Gutmann (15 November 1886 – 30 April 1944) was a Dutch banker and art collector. A convert from Judaism, he and his wife were murdered by the Nazis in 1944, and parts of his art collection stolen by the German occupying forces during the German occupation of the Netherlands. The collection and the fate of Fritz Gutmann is described by his grandson, Simon Goodman, in the 2015 book The Orpheus Clock.
Biography
Gutmann was born in Berlin to Sophie Magnus (1852–1915) and Eugen Gutmann (1840-1925).Fritz Bernhard Eugen Gutmann at geni.com His father had founded in 1872 the Dresdner Bank.Joachim O. Ronall, "Gutmann, Eugen," Encyclopaedia Judaica vol. 7 (Jerusalem, 1974), pp. 988-9. A convert from Judaism,Felix Goldmann, "Converts," Universal Jewish Encyclopedia vol. 3 (New York, 1941), p. 345. Eugen Gutmann ran the bank in Berlin for over 40 years, developing it into a major German financial operation with an international reach.See newspaper advertisements in The Sentinel (Chicago), August 1, 1919, p. 14 (in English); and Haynt (Warsaw), Dec. 23, 1927, p.1 (in Yiddish). During that time, he accumulated many works of art, including a famous Renaissance gold and silver collection.Héctor Feliciano, The Lost Museum. The Nazi conspiracy to steal the world's greatest works of art (New York: Basic Books, 1995), p. 114.
Before 1914, Friedrich was managing director of the Dresdner Bank's British branch in London. He was interned during World War I on the Isle of Man, but by 1918 was able to emigrate to Amsterdam.Information in this paragraph is from Anne Webber, "Introduction to the Gutmann Sale Catalogue," Christie's, "Sale 2590: Property from the Gutmann Collection," May 13, 2003 (Amsterdam), see also "Nazis killed Simon Goodman's grandparents and stole their art; new book tells how he got some of it back" in Los Angeles Times, 20 October 2015, last retrieved on 30 October 2015 There he ran the Dresdner bank's branch in Amsterdam under the name Proehl & Gutmann.For the name of the branch, see the newspaper Israël (Cairo), Dec. 16, 1932, p. 6 (in French). Though the youngest son of Eugen Gutmann, he became the family trustee of the "Eugen Gutmann Collection". He also amassed an art collection of his own with paintings by Old Masters as well as Impressionist artists such as Renoir and Degas. At their home, Huize Bosbeek, in Heemstede, near Haarlem, Friedrich and his wife, Louise von Landau (whom he had married in 1913), led an "international way of life."Lili Gutmann statement, "Making a Killing" (Part I) (1998; documentary produced by Anne Webber and executive producer Roy Ackerman). Their daughter, Lili, left home for Italy in 1938, where she married,David Gritten, "Treasure hunter," The Telegraph (Feb. 15, 2003). and at about the same time the couple's other child, Bernard (d. 1994), was in England attending university at Cambridge (he Anglicized the surname to "Goodman").Morley Safer, "The Search," 60 Minutes (CBS News, Jan. 19, 1997; Burrelle's Information Services Transcript vol. XXIV, Number 19, p. 18).
Prior to the outbreak of war in 1939 and the capture of Paris by the Nazis in June 1940, Friedrich sent part of his collection to Paris and New York for safe keeping, and retained what was left at Heemstede.Feliciano, The Lost Museum, p. 115. He did not consider himself a Jew – both he and his wife had been baptizedAnne Webber, "Introduction to the Gutmann Sale Catalogue," Christie's, "Sale 2590: Property from the Gutmann Collection," May 13, 2003 (Amsterdam). - but the Nazis did.Lili Gutmann statement, "Making a Killing" (Part I). Friedrich and Louise Gutmann would likely have been considered Jews under racial laws of 1935 (David Bankier, Encyclopedia of the Holocaust (New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1990), vol. 3, p. 981. In the spring of 1941, Karl Haberstock, the Nazi art dealer active in Paris,Feliciano, The Lost Museum, p. 96. visited Heemstede to "buy" the Gutmann collection (the offer was described as a "forced sale")."Making a Killing" (Part I). Friedrich was obliged to sell many artworks and unsuccessfully sought to avoid further Nazi pressure, even having an appeal for protection in 1942 made to Heinrich Himmler,Feliciano, The Lost Museum, p. 184 (where Himmler's response is translated); Lili Gutmann statement, "Making a Killing" (Part I). the Nazi SS chief. On May 26, 1943, SS officials came to Heemstede and led away Friedrich and Louise, telling the couple that they were being taken to Berlin.Lili Gutmann statement, "Making a Killing" (Part I). In fact, they were sent to the Theresienstadt concentration camp. In April 1944, a witness saw Friedrich beaten to death in nearby Small Fortress; in October 1944, Louise was sent to Auschwitz, where she was murdered.
Dispute over looted Degas painting
After the war, Bernard Goodman and Lili Gutmann returned to find their Heemstede family home stripped of all art. They notified Dutch, French, German and British authorities,Morley Safer, "The Search", 60 Minutes (CBS News, January 19, 1997; Burrelle's Information Services Transcript vol. XXIV, Number 19, p. 19). and set out to retrieve the items.Anne Webber, "Introduction to the Gutmann Sale Catalogue," Christie's, "Sale 2590: Property from the Gutmann Collection," May 13, 2003 (Amsterdam); Ron Grossman, "Tracing a single artwork's journey," Chicago Tribune, January 28, 2001, section 7, p. 5. They had modest successes between 1954 and 1960, but hundreds of items remained missing. Bernard's sons, Nick and Simon, only learned of their father's quest after his death, and continued his pursuit.
The Degas painting In October 1995 Simon Goodman found a photograph of one of the looted items in a 1994 exhibition catalogue from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.Nick Goodman, quoted in Gila Wertheimer, "Looted Nazi Degas Traced to Chicago," Chicago Jewish Star, March 21, 1997, p. 2. "Landscape with Smokestacks" ("Paysage Avec Fumée de Cheminées," 1890), a pastel over monotype by Edgar Degas,Feliciano, The Lost Museum, pp. 183-4; the Degas work is reproduced in black-and-white, plate C8. was cited in the catalogue as belonging to Daniel C. Searle, a pharmaceutical billionaire living near Chicago.
Previously in the collection of Max Silberberg, who put it up for auction, Friedrich Gutmann had bought that work in 1931, and in 1939 sent it to the art firm of Paul Graupe et Cie in Paris for safekeeping.Chicago Jewish Star, March 21, 1997, p. 1; Feliciano, The Lost Museum, p. 115. The painting reached New York from Switzerland in 1951 and was sold to American collector Emile Wolf. In 1987, it was purchased from Wolf by Searle for $850,000, after he obtained the advice of experts at the Art Institute of Chicago (where he was a life trustee), on which he "relied heavily."Daniel Searle statement, "Making a Killing"; Feliciano, The Lost Museum, p. 188; Editorial, "Missing the point," Chicago Jewish Star, March 12, 1999, p. 4; Chicago Jewish Star, August 21, 1998, p. 18. The work's provenance included the name of Hans Wendland, a German art dealer who "stands out like a sore thumb," Willi Korte, a legal expert in retrieving Nazi stolen art, told CBS News reporter Morley Safer in 1997. Wendland, Korte said, was responsible "more than anybody else… for smuggling plundered works of art, plundered by the Nazis in France, into Switzerland for sale." Korte agreed with Safer's summary, that "what you're saying is that that unwillingness to know, that turning a blind eye [to Nazi art plunder during World War II] still applies to these paintings?"Morley Safer, "The Search," 60 Minutes (CBS News, Jan. 19, 1997; Burrelle's Information Services Transcript vol. XXIV, Number 19, p. 20). Searle's lawyers maintained that Wendland's name was not well known in 1987; Douglas Druick, Searle Curator of European Painting and Prince Trust Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Art Institute, stated he had never heard of him.Howard J. Trienens, Landscape with Smokestacks: The Case of the Allegedly Plundered Degas (Northwestern University Press, 2000), p. 56, p. 114, fn 79.
After learning of the painting's current ownership (it was held in storage at the Art Institute), the Goodman brothers asked Searle for its return. In an interview they said they wanted "to see justice done," and to recover what they said belonged to them.Chicago Jewish Star, March 21, 1997, p. 2. Searle's position, initially summarized by his Chicago legal counsel Ralph Lerner in 1997, was that "There is sympathy… for any victim of the Nazi regime. Other than that, this case is no different from any other case involving stolen works of art." In 1998, Howard J. Trienens, a partner at the law firm defending Searle, said in an interview that the Goodmans "had no way of proving that they owned it, therefore why should Mr. Searle give it back?" He also wondered "If it is good policy to disrupt the art market by this kind of claim."Morley Safer, "The Search", 60 Minutes (CBS News, Jan. 19, 1997; Burrelle's Information Services Transcript vol. XXIV, Number 19, p. 21-2); Trienens statement, "Making a Killing" (end of Part 2 and Part 3). At the same time, Searle himself expressed "some sympathy" for the Goodman family's feelings, adding, "I have a principle. And the principle is that I will not be extorted."Searle statement, "Making a Killing", cited in G. Wertheimer, "Degas Case: Collector airs Swiss banker's mentality," Chicago Jewish Star, August 21, 1998, p. 18.
Legal action A year of correspondence between the Goodmans and Searle's lawyers proved unproductive,G. Wertheimer, "Case of Degas from Holocaust-era art collection moving to trial here," Chicago Jewish Star, August 7, 1998, p. 18. and in 1996 the Goodmans filed suit against Searle, first in New York and later in Chicago.Kevin Williams, "Suit seeks painting 'stolen' by Nazis," Chicago Sun-Times, July 20, 1996. The suit was believed to be the first instance in the United States of an individual suing for art stolen during the war,Chicago Jewish Star, March 21, 1997, p. 1. and a "turning point" in helping to bring the subject of Nazi plunder "under the international spotlight."
On October 31, 1997, a conference call between the principals failed to achieve a settlement, and the judge postponed the trial to 1998.G. Wertheimer, "Degas lawsuit is postponed," Chicago Jewish Star, November 7, 1997, p. 10. The request by Searle's lawyers to dismiss the case was rejected by a federal court district judge on July 30, 1998, and a date for a jury trial set for September 9.G. Wertheimer, "Case of Degas from Holocaust-era art collection moving to trial here," Chicago Jewish Star, August 7, 1998, p. 1. A segment on the CBS news program 60 Minutes aired across the United States on January 19, 1997; on August 10, 1998, a second program, "Making a Killing," was shown in Chicago on PBS' WTTW-TV. Termed "a powerful British-made documentary on the dispute" by a Chicago newspaper, it "leaves little doubt that a jury… would likely have little sympathy with Searle's ongoing refusal to confront the evidence that the Degas he had purchased in good faith had been stolen by the Nazis."G. Wertheimer, "Degas Case: Collector airs Swiss banker's mentality," Chicago Jewish Star, August 21, 1998, p. 1.