August and Helene Eymer, who arrived in Austria in the 1910s and became Austrian citizens in 1933, managed the Kunsthandlung L. T. Neumann, with August as artistic director and his wife responsible for financial affairs and acquisitions. The company, founded in 1833, had been owned by the family since August's uncle Julius Eymer took it over in 1900. August Eymer, from 1919 employee and after 1930 partner in L. T. Neumann and also a court-sworn expert and assessor, had good relations with museums such as the Österreichische Galerie, Albertina and the Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, to which he sold and sometimes donated paintings and prints. During the Nazi era he was a functionary in the Reichskammer der bildenden Künste (Reich Chamber of Fine Arts) in Vienna responsible for the art market. In 1940, after being on a waiting list for two years, he was accepted as a member of the NSDAP. After 1945 he claimed that in that position he had been able to help a number of people persecuted on "racial" grounds and to keep artworks on their behalf in Vienna and had also dealt with works by "forbidden artists" such as Isidor Kaufmann, Max Liebermann and Egon Schiele. He claimed in addition to have assisted in the salvaging of Austrian art, particularly Künstlerhaus holdings, at castles in Lower and Upper Austria. In 1948 he was classified as a lesser offender under § 17 of the 1947 Prohibition Act. He ran Galerie L. T. Neumann, for some time with Otto Urban, until the end of 1975, when he gave up his trade licence in favour of his successor Rudolf Kremayr.
August Eymer
Publications about the person / institution
I. Netopil, Nachruf auf August Eymer, in: Alte und Moderne Kunst 23, 159 (1978), 51–53, URL: hauspublikationen.mak.at/viewer/image/1369031013676_0001/57/ (3.12.2020).
Archives
Archiv der Wirtschaftskammer Österreich, Fachgruppe Buch- und Medienwirtschaft Wien, L.T. Neumann, Rudolf Kremayr.
WStLA, M.Abt. 119, A42, NS-Registrierung, August Eymer, 1/27.