Otto Kallir (born Otto Nirenstein; April 1, 1894 – November 30, 1978) was an Austrian-American art historian, author, publisher, and gallerist. He was awarded the Silbernes Ehrenzeichen für Verdienste um das Land Wien in 1968.
Austria Nirenstein was born in Vienna, where he attended the Akademisches Gymnasium (Academic High School) from 1904 to 1912. After serving in the Austrian Army during World War I, he studied at the Technische Hochschule Vienna Technical Institute) from 1919 to 1920. However, antisemitism at the Hochschule made it impossible for him to pursue his first ambition, to become an aeronautical engineer, so in 1919, he began a career in publishing by establishing the Verlag Neuer Graphik, a division of the Rikola Verlag.Jane Kallir, Saved from Europe (Galerie St. Etienne, New York:1999).
Among the most important publications of Verlag Neuer Graphik was Das graphische Werk von Egon Schiele,Otto Kallir, Das graphische Werk von Egon Schiele (Wien: Verlag Neuer Graphik, 1922). a portfolio containing the first editions of the artist's six etchings and two of his lithographs. In 1923, Nirenstein established the Neue Galerie (still operating, under different ownership, as the Galerie nächst St. Stephan), which opened with the first major posthumous exhibition of Schiele's work. Eventually, Nirenstein became an internationally recognized art dealer, representing Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele and Alfred Kubin. In 1931, he rescued the work of Richard Gerstl from oblivion. Nirenstein also salvaged the estate of Peter Altenberg, creating a permanent gallery installation (later donated to the Wien Museum) featuring the contents of the poet's former hotel room. Additionally, the Neue Galerie exhibited contemporary Austrian artists such as Herbert Böckl, Anton Faistauer, Gerhard Frankl, Ludwig Heinrich Jungnickel, Oskar Laske and Otto Rudolf Schatz, as well as nineteenth-century Austrian masters like Anton Romako and Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller. At a time when Austrians were still relatively unfamiliar with European modernism, Nirenstein mounted one-man shows of work by Lovis Corinth, Edvard Munch, Auguste Renoir, Paul Signac and Vincent van Gogh.For a complete list of Neue Galerie exhibitions, see Jane Kallir: Austria's Expressionism (Rizzoli, New York, 1981), pp. 95-98.
In 1922, Nirenstein married the Baroness Franziska von Löwenstein-Scharffeneck (1899-1992). The following year, to celebrate the birth of their son, John Kallir (d. 2022), he changed the name of his publishing house to Johannes Presse. Like the Verlag Neuer Graphik, the Johannes Presse specialized in limited-edition books and portfolios containing original prints. A daughter, Evamarie Kallir, was born in 1925 (d. 2022).
In 1928, Nirenstein collaborated with the Hagenbund artists' association to mount a major exhibition commemorating the tenth anniversary of Egon Schiele's death. Paintings were exhibited at the Hagenbund, works on paper at the Neue Galerie. Two years later, Nirenstein published the first catalogue raisonné of Schiele's paintings, Egon Schiele: Persönlichkeit und Werk.Otto Nirenstein, Egon Schiele: Persōnlichkeit und Werk (Berlin/Wien: Leipzig/Zsolnay, 1930).
Also in 1930, he received his doctorate in art history from the University of Vienna. In 1933 Otto Nirenstein legally changed his name to Kallir, adopting a name that had been in his family for many generations.
In 1937 he helped Frederich Welz organize a Waldmüller exhibition in Salzburg. After World War II, Kallir refused to have anything to do with Welz, whose dealings during the Nazi period were notorious.
Emigration
After the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, Kallir faced imminent persecution, not only because he was Jewish, but also because he had actively supported the Schuschnigg government. Compelled to emigrate, he sold the Neue Galerie to his secretary Vita Künstler, who was not Jewish. This was a rare example of a "friendly Aryanization." Künstler preserved the gallery as best she could and voluntarily returned it to Kallir after World War II. Because the modern artists represented by the Neue Galerie were not subject to Austria's export laws in 1938, and most were in any case considered "degenerate" by the Nazis, Kallir was able to bring a significant inventory with him into exile. He, his wife and their two children initially settled in Lucerne, Switzerland. But the Swiss would not give him a work permit, and so he traveled on to Paris. Here he founded the Galerie St. Etienne, named after Vienna's central landmark, the Cathedral of St. Stephen. The French refused to admit the rest of the Kallir family, however, and so they had to find a country that would take them all. In 1939, they emigrated to the United States, bringing a significant portion of the gallery's inventory.Johnson, “Art in Review; ‘Saved From Europe’,” The New York Times, Dec. 24, 1999.
In the same year, Kallir established the New York Galerie St. Etienne, where he introduced Austrian and German expressionist art to the United States.
The Austrian-American League
In Paris, Kallir had naturally associated with other Austrian refugees, and he became friendly with Otto von Habsburg, the pretender to the Austrian throne. Almost immediately after arriving in New York, Kallir joined the board of the Austrian-American League, one of several semi-political émigré groups. He was appointed chairman in 1940. The League organized "artistic evenings" and helped recent arrivals adapt to life in the US. As chairman of the League, Kallir endeavored to secure US visas and affidavits for persecuted Austrians, eventually arranging for the safe passage of about 80 refugees. Kallir was also concerned that, if the US entered the war, Austrians as enemy aliens might have their assets confiscated or be restricted in their ability to move freely. In 1941, he convinced Otto von Habsburg, who had recently arrived in America, to accompany him to Washington D.C., where they met with the Attorney General, Francis Biddle. They convinced Biddle that Austrians were victims, not accomplices, of Hitler. In 1942, after the US had entered the war, Austria was officially recognized as a neutral country, an action that had the desired effect for Austrian residents of the US, but also unforeseen consequences in Austria after the war.
Otto Kallir and Willibald Plöchl
Willibald Plöchl was the founder of the Free Austrian National Council, a rival of the Austrian-American League. He held Kallir responsible for the differences that had developed between him and Otto von Habsburg. This led members of Plöchl's group to denounce Kallir to the FBI as a "former agent of Hitler and Mussolini" who had dealt with looted art. The unfounded accusation caused Kallir to suffer a near-fatal heart attack on December 12, 1942. After a long convalescence, he resigned from the Austrian-American League and thereafter ceased any involvement in politics. The Washington Daily News, which had printed an article about Kallir's alleged Nazi connections, issued a formal apology. The FBI closed its investigation with a statement from J. Edgar Hoover confirming that the affair had been instigated by the jealousy of a rival political group and had no basis in fact. On April 14, 1942, Otto von Habsburg wrote to the OSS (Office of Strategic Services, predecessor of the CIA): "Kallir was attacked from many sides. It appears those attacks were unjustified. Kallir is honest, but very incompetent in politics."Gerhardt Plöchl: Willibald Plöchl und Otto Habsburg in den USA. – Ringen um Österreichs 'Exilregierung' 1941/42. Verlag Dokumentationsarchiv des ōsterreichischen Widerstandes, Wien 2007.
United States
In 1939, when Kallir established the Galerie St. Etienne in New York, the Austrian modernists had very little international recognition or market value. At Egon Schiele’s first American exhibition, mounted by the gallery in 1941, drawings were priced at $20, watercolors at $60; none sold.Egon Schiele,” Galerie St. Etienne, New York, November 7-December 5, 1941 (Kallir Research Institute archives, New York); approximately $424 and $1,273 as of 2023. This and all subsequent dollar equivalencies per the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI Inflation Calculator, https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm. Through repeated showings, sales and gifts to museums, Kallir gradually established the reputations not just of Schiele, but also of Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, and Alfred Kubin. The Galerie St. Etienne organized the first American one-person shows of such artists as Erich Heckel (1955), Klimt (1959), Kokoschka (1940), and Kubin (1941), Paula Modersohn-Becker (1958). During the 1940s, when works by the Austrian masters were almost impossible to sell, Kallir achieved a major success with the "discovery" of the self-taught octogenarian painter Anna Mary Robertson Moses. Known worldwide as "Grandma" Moses, she was one of the most famous artists of the Cold-War years, and the most successful female painter of her time.
Kallir's approach relied heavily on scholarship and cooperation with museums. In 1960, he collaborated with Thomas Messer to organize the first American museum exhibition of Schiele's work. It opened at Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art (of which Messer was then director) and traveled to five additional venues. In 1965, after Messer had been appointed Director of the Guggenheim Museum in New York, Kallir convinced him to mount a major Klimt/Schiele show. In 1966, Kallir issued an updated edition of his Schiele catalogue raisonné, Egon Schiele: Oeuvre Catalogue of the Paintings,Otto Kallir, Egon Schiele: oeuvre catalogue of the paintings (New York: Crown Publishers, 1966). which was followed, in 1970, by a catalogue raisonné of the artist's prints, Egon Schiele: The Graphic Work.Otto Kallir. Egon Schiele: The Graphic Work (New York: Crown Publishers, 1970). In recognition of the Guggenheim’s support, Kallir donated Schiele’s “Portrait of an Old Man (Johann Harms)” in 1969. Kallir’s other major donations included Klimt’s “Pear Tree” (given to the Fogg Art Museum in 1956) and “Baby” (given to the National Gallery of Art in 1978).
He also authored catalogues raisonnés documenting the oeuvres of Grandma Moses (1973)Otto Kallir, Grandma Moses (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1973). and Richard Gerstl (1974).Otto Kallir, Richard Gerstl (1883-1908): Beitrāge zur Dokumentation seines Lebens und Werkes (New York: Counsel Press, 1974).
Upon Kallir's death in New York in 1978, the Galerie St. Etienne was taken over by his long-time associate, Hildegard Bachert, and his granddaughter, Jane Kallir. In 2020, the gallery ceased commercial operations and became an art advisory. Its archives and library were transferred to the Kallir Research Institute, a foundation established in 2017 to continue Otto Kallir’s scholarly activities.
The Neue Galerie in Vienna, run by various directors after the war, was formally dissolved in 1975. Its archives were donated to the Österreichische Galerie im Belvedere. Otto Kallir's family donated his collection of historical autographs to the Wienbibliothek im Rathaus in 2008. Additional archival materials can be found at the Leo Baeck Institute in New York.
Postwar Restitution