Otto Kallir

Otto Kallir (born Otto Nirenstein, April 1, 1894, in Vienna – November 30, 1978, in New York) was an Austrian-American art historian, author, publisher, and gallerist. He was awarded the Silbernes Ehrenzeichen für Verdienste um das Land Wien in 1968.

Nirenstein attended the Akademisches Gymnasium (Academic High School) in Vienna 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.

Among the most important publications of Verlag Neuer Graphik was Das graphische Werk von Egon Schiele, 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.

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.

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.

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.