Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann

Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann (April 5. 1885 in Brünn – September 2 1948 in Vienna) was an artist and teacher at the Wiener Kunstgewerbeschule.

Life and work

Born on April 5, 1885 and raised in Bavaria, Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.[1] In 1905/06, he completed his one-and-a-half-year military service in Bavaria.

He worked as a freelance portrait painter, theatrical painter, and illustrator. He married Eva Huch. During the First World War, he was continuously conscripted into the German army. In 1916, he was awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class. In 1919, he took over the directorship of the painting department at the Vienna School of Applied Arts. Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann was awarded the professional title of Professor. In November 1921, he divorced his wife but continued to pay alimony. On April 12, 1922, he married Hermine Zuckerkandl, daughter of Otto Zuckerkandl, the head physician at the Rothschild Hospital in Vienna, and his wife Amalie, by dispensation[2][3].

Müller-Hofmann's father-in-law, Otto Zuckerhandl, was Jewish, and his mother-in-law, Amalie, was a convert to Judaism. Their daughter, Hermine, owned a third of the Purkersdorf Sanatorium. Hermine Zuckerhandl and Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann had two sons, Viktor Carl Müller-Hofmann (born May 24, 1923) and Rudolf Immanuel Müller-Hofmann (born February 12, 1926).[4]

Nazi era

After Austria's Anschluss with Nazi Germany in March 1938 the Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann family was persecuted because of Hermine's Jewish heritage. Despite her conversion to Roman Catholicism, she was considered Jewish and their sons half-Jewish. On November 30, 1938, Müller-Hofmann, who was a Free Mason, lost his position at the School of Applied Arts in March 1938 and was placed on "temporary leave" .[5] Wilhelm and Hermine tried unsuccessfully to emigrate with their sons as a family. Failing this, in early 1939, they sent their sons Victor and Rudolf to safely in Sweden, while retreating to upper Bavaria where they lived until 1945.[2]

Hermine Müller-Hofmann's mother, Amalie Zuckerkandl,[6] her sister Eleonore (Nora) Stiasny, her brother in law, Paul Stiasny, and their son as well her aunt Amalie Redlich were all murdered by the Nazi regime.[7][8][9]

The Zuckerhandl and Stiasny art collections

In January 1940, Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann sold seven Japanese ukiyo-e prints, formerly owned by Amalie Zuckerkandl, to the State Museum of Applied Arts for 150 RM. In 1942, Klimt's portrait of Amalie Zuckerkandl was sold to the art historian and gallery owner Vita Künstler for 1600 RM.[10] More than 60 years later, on 28 September 2007, the Austrian Advisory Commission recommended that these prints be restituted to the Müller-Hofmann heirs[11]

Confusion over which Klimt paintings were in the Zuckerhandl/Stiasy collections has contributed to difficulties in restituting Nazi-looted art to the correct families. [12][13]

Postwar

Wilhelm and Hermine Müller-Hofmann returned to Vienna after the war and lived in the Belvedere. Their apartment had been looted and by Soviet troops. However, the painter was able to return to his former post at the renamed College of Applied Arts. Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann taught there until his early death in September 1948. He was buried in the Simmering Cemetery.[14]

The Japanese prints were restituted to the heirs of Müller-Hofmann in 2009.[15]

On March 15, 2021, the French Minister of Culture announce that the Klimt painting "Rosiers sous les arbres", would be restituted by Orsay Museum to Hermine Müller-Hofmann, as the heir of Holocaust victim Nora Stiasny.[16]

In 2001, by mistake, the Belvedere in Vienna restituted a different painting of a tree, Apple Tree II, to Hermine Müller-Hofmann.[17] [18][19] In fact Apple Tree II had been owned by a different Viennese Jewish art collector, Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt, the daughter of Erich and Serena Lederer.[20] By the time the error was discovered, Hermine Müller-Hofmann' nephew, Viktor Hoffmann, had already sold Klimt's Apple Tree II.[21][22]

  • Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann, Eintrag im Lexikon der Österreichischen Provenienzforschung, verfasst von Leonhard Weidinger (2019)

See also

List of Claims for Restitution of Nazi-looted art

The Holocaust in Austria

References

  1. ^ "Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann". rkd.
  2. ^ a b "Müller-Hofmann, Wilhelm | Lexikon Provenienzforschung". www.lexikon-provenienzforschung.org. Retrieved 2026-03-04.
  3. ^ "The Zuckerkandl Family". Gustav Klimt-Datenbank. Retrieved 2026-03-07.
  4. ^ "Hermine "Mini" Müller-Hofmann". DER STANDARD (in Austrian German). Retrieved 2026-03-07.
  5. ^ "Unwritten Biographies-Publikation — Collections". Collection and Archive. Retrieved 2026-03-07.
  6. ^ "Das-Portraet-einer-Ermordeten-Amalie-Zuckerkandl". www.derstandard.at. Retrieved 2026-03-07.
  7. ^ Kronsteiner, Olga. "Klimts Apfelbaum: Chronik eines folgenreichen Irrtums - Klimt's Appletree: Chronicle of a momentous error". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2026-03-07. Die Müller-Hoffmanns sollten dem Holocaust entkommen, nicht jedoch die Stiasnys. Otto und sein Vater waren nach Prag geflüchtet und kamen 1942 in Auschwitz um. Nora war mit ihrer 73-jährigen Mutter, der seinerzeit von Gustav Klimt porträtierten Amalie Zuckerkandl, vorerst in Wien verblieben. Im April 1942 wurden beide ins polnische Izbica deportiert, die Familie 1947 für tot erklärt.
  8. ^ "Lost Art Internet Database - Jüdische Sammler und Kunsthändler (Opfer nationalsozialistischer Verfolgung und Enteignung) - Stiasny, Paul". www.lostart.de (in German). Archived from the original on 2018-10-09. Retrieved 2026-03-07.
  9. ^ "Hermine "Mini" Müller-Hofmann". DER STANDARD (in Austrian German). Retrieved 2026-03-07. Mit Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann, Professor an der Kunstgewerbeschule, verheiratet, lebte sie in einer Wohnung im Augartenpalais, ehe sie wie die gesamte Familie Opfer des nationalsozialistischen Rassenwahns wurde. Während ihre Mutter, ihre Schwester Nora Stiasny, ihre Tante Amalie Redlich und mehrere andere Verwandte deportiert wurden und in der Shoah ums Leben kamen, konnte "Mini" Müller-Hofmann ihre beiden Söhne in Schweden bei der Verlegerdynastie Bonnier unterbringen und mit ihrem Ehemann während der Kriegsjahre in Bayern untertauchen.
  10. ^ "London's National Gallery Shows Nazi Loot". www.lootedart.com. Retrieved 2026-03-07. No one knows exactly what Dr. Führer did with the portrait of Amalie, but Amalie's non-Jewish son-in-law Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann supposedly came into possession of the painting during the War and sold it to the art dealer Vita Künstler. Vita held onto the painting for many years, finally donating it to the Austrian Gallery when she died in 2001 at the age of 101.
  11. ^ "MAK forschungsprojekte".
  12. ^ "Dossier de presse Dossier de presse" (PDF).
  13. ^ "Au musée d'Orsay, un Klimt restitué peut en cacher un autre !". www.telerama.fr (in French). 2021-03-22. Retrieved 2026-03-09.
  14. ^ "Müller-Hofmann, Wilhelm | Lexikon Provenienzforschung". www.lexikon-provenienzforschung.org. Retrieved 2026-03-09. On 18 October 1945 Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann took up his duties again at the College of Applied Arts, as it now was, in Vienna. The family's former apartment in Palais Augarten had been looted and requisitioned by the Soviet occupation force. In 1948 the family moved into an apartment in the Belvedere. Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann died on 2 September 1948, probably of angina pectoris, which he had contracted during the Nazi period.
  15. ^ "Müller-Hofmann, Wilhelm | Lexikon Provenienzforschung". www.lexikon-provenienzforschung.org. Retrieved 2026-03-09. On 28 September 2007 on the basis of a provenance research dossier in the MAK, the Art Restitution Advisory Board recommended the restitution of the seven Japanese prints to the heirs of Wilhelm Müller-Hofmann. The prints were handed over on 22 January 2009.
  16. ^ "La France va restituer un tableau de Gustav Klimt à une famille juive autrichienne spoliée en 1938". France 24 (in French). 2021-03-16. Retrieved 2026-03-09. Les ayants droit sont les descendants de la sœur de Nora Stiasny, Hermine Müller-Hofmann, qui avait pu échapper à l'Holocauste en Bavière.
  17. ^ "Kunstrückgabegesetz: Sammlungen August und Serena Lederer / Nora Stiasny Empfehlung des Kunstrückgabebeirats vom 10. Oktober 2000 BERICHT DES KUNSTRÜCKGABEBEIRATES" (PDF).
  18. ^ d'Arcy, David (2018-11-14). "L'Autriche a restitué un Klimt par erreur". The Art Newspaper. Retrieved 2026-03-09.
  19. ^ D'Arcy, David (2018-11-13). "Austria returns wrong Klimt to wrong family". The Art Newspaper - International art news and events. Retrieved 2026-03-09.
  20. ^ D'Arcy, David (2021-04-13). "After major Klimt restitution by France, another work still vexes Vienna". The Art Newspaper - International art news and events. Retrieved 2026-03-09.
  21. ^ D'Arcy, David (2018-11-13). "Austria returns wrong Klimt to wrong family". The Art Newspaper - International art news and events. Retrieved 2026-03-09. The painting was returned to a surviving member of her family, Hermine Müller-Hoffmann. Hermine's nephew, Viktor Hoffmann, who was living in Sweden, sold the picture, which was valued at a reported €20m. The current owner remained anonymous until it was revealed at the press preview for the Klimt show. The painting was removed from the exhibition the next day. Suspicions around the work's provenance circulated even before it was handed over to Stiasny's heirs, and experts called the mistaken restitution an "open secret" for years. In 2015, the Commission for Provenance Research found that the work owned by Nora Stiasny was actually Roses under Trees.
  22. ^ "Austria Criticized for Restituting Klimt Painting to Wrong Family". Artforum. 2018-11-16. Retrieved 2026-03-09. Stiasny died in a concentration camp in Belzec, Poland, in 1942. The Nazi official gifted Rosebushes under Trees to a girlfriend, who sold it in 1980 to the Musée d'Orsay, where it now hangs. The mix-up over the Klimt paintings led Austria to return Apple Tree II to Stiasny's surviving family member, Hermine Müller-Hoffman, whose nephew, Viktor Hoffman, sold the picture for around $22.5 million. The buyer of the work, the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, established by Bernard Arnault, collector and CEO of luxury goods conglomerate LVMH, had not been publicly known until the institution loaned the painting to the Leopold Museum for the exhibition.
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