Gayrsperg, Ivo Hans

Ivo Hans Gayrsperg

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4 March 1888 Vienna – 20 July 1961 Klosterneuburg

After being discharged from the army in early March 1919, Ivo Hans Gayrsperg founded the Wiener Literarische Anstalt Wila Verlags GmbH/AG with the German writer Theodor Bock-Stieber (1859–1937) and was its managing director from 1921/22. After it was wound up at the end of March 1923, he opened the art dealership I. H. Gayrsperg & Co at Gumpendorferstraße 109 in Vienna's 6th district and from 1924 managed it with his wife Marcela, née Klobasser, until the end of August 1926. Afterwards he worked for Teppichhaus Orendi in Vienna, then moved to Philipp Haas & Söhne as a carpet seller. From 1926 he was also an assessor specializing in antiques, applied art and carpets, but had to apply for unemployment benefit to supplement this additional work, which did not produce enough revenue. Between 1930 and 1937 he was unemployed. Gayrsperg described himself as an "expert, arbiter and insurance assessor". In the summer of 1939 he applied to join the NSDAP and was accepted on 1 April 1940. At the end of 1939 he worked in the department of employment for Vienna III South. After the Second World War he earned a living as a freelance expert and assessor of classical applied art and Oriental carpets. He is last recorded in 1951 working for the Verband der Versicherungsanstalten (association of insurance companies) as an art and applied art expert.

Gayrsperg appears as the author of an undated letter, probably written in 1938/39 on the subject of "notification of endangered artworks". In the letter he drew the attention of Herbert Seiberl at the Zentralstelle für Denkmalschutz (Central Monument Protection Authority) to valuable art objects owned by Jewish collectors, who would no doubt wish to take them abroad when the fled. They included Jakob Alt's painting Cholera Chapel Near Baden from the collection of Ludwig Neurath, who fled to Britain in 1939. The Österreichische Galerie acquired the painting that year through the Viennese art dealer Marie Wolfrum. A dossier was compiled as part of the systematic provenance research and submitted to the Austrian Art Restitution Advisory Board, which in 2009 did not recommend the restitution of the painting to Ludwig Neurath's legal successors, because it was not possible to identify the artwork with certainty in view of the diverging technical descriptions in the known sources. After the files of the Viennese transport company Reitter had been found in the Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (Austrian State Archives) by the restitution department of the Vienna Jewish Community, it was possible to prove that the painting had been expropriated from the Neurath collection. Restitution of the object was recommended in 2010 and the restitution carried out a year later.

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Publications about the person / institution

Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Ludwig Neurath, 20.11.2009, URL: www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Neurath_Ludwig_2009-11-20.pdf (3.12.2020).
Beschluss des Kunstrückgabebeirats, Ludwig Neurath, 20.11.2009, URL:
www.provenienzforschung.gv.at/beiratsbeschluesse/Neurath_Ludwig_2010-09-22.pdf (3.12.2020).

Murray G. Hall, Österreichische Verlagsgeschichte 1918–1938 2, Wien-Köln-Graz 1985.

Archives

Archiv der Wirtschaftskammer Österreich, Gewerbeakt, WILA Verlagsaktiengesellschaft.

BDA-Archiv, Restitutionsmaterialien, K. 38, Zl. 3528/1938; 3955/1938; 2499/1938; PM Gayrsperg.
BDA-Ausfuhr Zl. 2499/1938.

MAK-Archiv, Hauptakt Zl. 810-1940.

NÖLA, NS-Registrierungsakten, 26. Bezirk, Zl. 235.

OeStA/AdR, Arbeit und Soziales, PA Gayrsperg Ivo Hans.
OeStA/AdR, Handel und Verkehr, Standesausweis Gayrsperg Marcela.
OeStA/AdR, Verkehr, Spedition Reitter, Zl. 1.082/11.035, Karton 18, Zl. 460, Ludwig Neurath.

Friedhofsbuch der Pfarre Weidling, Stand 2018, URL: www.pfarre-weidling.at/uploads/friedhof/Friedhofsbuch.pdf (3.12.2020).

Stadtarchiv Klosterneuburg, Melderegister.

Wienbibliothek im Rathaus, NL Felix Braun, ZPH 413, Archivbox 20, Neujahrsgrüße von Hans Ivo von Gayrsperg, 19.12.1953.

WStLA, Historische Wiener Meldeunterlagen, Meldeauskunft Ivo Gayrsperg.