Erica Tietze-Conrat Diaries, vol. II: 1937-1938 + Vol. III

The forthcoming publication of the diaries of the Austro-American art historian Erica Tietze- Conrat (Vienna 18831958 New York) is divided into three parts. Volume 1 entitled Der Wiener Vasari (The Viennese Vasari) comprises the early years of the First Republic, optimistic in spite of the prevailing economic crisis. The scene is Vienna. Tietze-Conrats husband and colleague Hans Tietze (Prague 18801954 New York) is a ministerial official responsible for the great task of restructuring the former Habsburg museums. Tietze-Conrat in spite of the social barriers confronting her as a woman and a Jew never comes across as a victim of her situation. She guides the reader through her busy day, visits exhibitions and then writes reviews of them, gives public talks and private lessons in art history in the houses of the rich and supports her husbands artistic endeavours through feature articles, mostly in German newspapers. Apart from her role as wife and mother of four children and her uninterrupted research she seeks recognition as a poet as well. Her efforts in this regard are noted in her diaries and the text is interspersed collage-like with her poems. The descriptions of everyday life also offer an interesting insight into the organisation of a middle-class household and the balancing act between material survival, professional development, child rearing and farsighted social networking. In Vienna the Tietzes are a central meeting point for the art avant-garde, academic and non-university art historians, and the European Modernist scene in general. They keep an open house in which artists and art scholars are welcome guests. Many prominent and also unjustly forgotten personalities appear in her records, but at no time does she give the impression of name-dropping. Tietze-Conrat is the equal of these personalities, consistently offering her personal opinion on their intellectual and artistic creations. Hundreds of names are referenced in volume 3 (index volume) with their dates. The works of the most well-known of them and the prevailing socio-political context are detailed in the commentaries at the end of each diary year. When Hans Tietze sees the failure of his reforms around 1925 and draws the conclusions from the creeping political backlash by resigning from his official positions, the couple moves for several months to Spain. The description of an exotic world at the end of the first volume is a piece of art in its own right. After an eleven-year break (about which there are no records), the second volume, Leben im Katalog (Living in a Catalogue), takes up this outsider status that they tried to come to terms with through the Spanish interlude. A working journey in 1937 to escape the political tensions in Austria turns into a flight from the Nazis. These later journals are in the form of work logbooks and serve as a basis for the catalogue The Drawings of the Venetian Painters in the 15th and 16th Centuries, published in New York in 1944. As refugees and researchers Hans and Erica Tietze covered half of Europe before they obtain a non quota visa for the USA in early 1939. During their research in museums and private collections, the Tietzes met old acquaintances from the German Reich collectors who were able to escape to Switzerland, France, England and the Netherlands, representatives of universities, museums and galleries who were forced to leave their country. A number of these expelled art experts were now working in the art market. In 1937, however, they did not yet share the same fate and their prospects differed, but they soon formed into an army of émigrés. The daily entries provide a rare insight into the work of art historians under the difficult conditions as émigrés. At the same time the constant moves give a vivid picture of a disintegrating Europe.