Aranka Munk
Aranka Munk | |
|---|---|
Memorial stone for Aranka Munk | |
| Born | Aranka Pulitzer November 28, 1862 |
| Died | November 26, 1941 (aged 78) |
| Occupation | Art collector |
Aranka Munk (née Pulitzer, 28 November 1862 – 26 November 1941) was a Viennese art collector murdered in the Holocaust.
Early life and family
Born in Mako, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1862, into a Jewish family, Munk was the daughter of Simon Siegmund Pulitzer and Charlotte Pulitzer[1] and the sister of Klimt's chief patron Serena Lederer and Jenny Steiner. She had three daughters, Lili Munk; Ria Munk and Lola Christine Sachsel-Kraus.
Death of Ria Munk and Klimt portraits
In 1911, Munk's daughter Ria committed suicide.[2] An art collector and patron of the arts, Munk asked Gustav Klimt to paint a death-bed portrait of her daughter. Klimt painted three versions, which each had different fates. The first portrait Klimt painted for Aranka Munk was "Ria Munk on Her Deathbed," which Munk found so upsetting that she gave it to a sculptor friend, whose heirs sold it after the war, passing through the collection of the singer Barbra Streisand.[3][2]
The second version was later reworked to show a dancer, and the third, which Munk kept, was the unfinished "Portrait of Ria Munk III", also known Frauenbildnis, which ended up in the Lentos Museum's collection. Klimt died before completing it.[3][2] After Klimt's death Aranka Munk hung the unfinished portrait of her deceased daughter in her lake house.[4]
Persecution and death
In 1941, the Nazis seized her property and possessions and deported her to a concentration camp in Poland. On 26 November 1941, Aranka was murdered in the Holocaust because of her Jewish heritage.[2][4] In 1942, her daughter Lola Munk died at the Chełmno Extermination Camp.[5]
Claim for restitution
Vienna lawyer Alfred Noll submitted a claim for restitution on behalf of the Munk heirs in 2007.[2] Portrait of Ria Munk III passed through German art dealer Wolfgang Gurlitt on its way to the Lentos Art Museum. In June 2009, the portrait was restituted to the heirs of Aranka Munk.[6][2]
See also
References
- ^ "Aranka Munk". geni.com. 2025-10-04. Retrieved 2025-12-01.
- ^ a b c d e f "Heirs of Nazi victim to sell restituted Klimt". Reuters. 2010-05-28. Retrieved 2025-12-01.
- ^ a b "Gustav Klimt - The Dancer, formerly Ria Munk 1916". art-Klimt.com. 2017-01-16. Archived from the original on 2017-01-16. Retrieved 2024-01-27.
- ^ a b McNearney, Allison (2018-04-08). "How Gustav Klimt's Unfinished 'Ria Munk III' Finally Escaped the Nazis". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2024-01-27.
- ^ "Lola Christine Munk, 1900 - um 1942 (41 Jahre)" [Lola Christine Munk, 1900 - around 1942 (41 years old)]. www.hohenemsgenealogie.at (in German). Retrieved 2024-01-28.
- ^ "Gustav Klimt (1862-1918) Frauenbildnis (Portrait of Ria Munk III)". Christie's. Retrieved 2025-12-01.
Provenance. Aranka Munk, Vienna and Bads Aussee, by whom acquired from the artist. Wolfgang Gurlitt, Berlin (see note). Neue Galerie der Stadt (later, Lentos Kunstmuseum), Linz (inv. no. 149), by whom acquired from the above by 1956. Restituted to the heirs of Aranka Munk in June 2009.