Research on the Art Collection of Kurt und Gertrud Schülein, Stuttgart
Provenance Research Project in Cooperation with Steven C. Krause, Funded by the German Lost Art Foundation
The entrepreneur Kurt Schülein, together with his wife Gertrud, assembled an art collection that included paintings by 19th-century artists, among other works. The research project began in July 2024 and ended in August 2025.
Kurt Schülein was born on December 16, 1891, in Munich, the son of Josef and Ida Schülein. His father Josef was a co-founder of the Union Brewery, which merged with Löwenbräu in 1921. He served as a soldier in World War I.
Kurt’s sister Franziska married the Munich art dealer Theobald Heinemann, whose father had founded the D. Heinemann Gallery in 1872. Due to this family connection, Kurt Schülein’s art purchases are well documented, as records show he acquired at least 15 artworks from this gallery starting in 1920. His father and brothers also purchased works there, predominantly paintings from the 19th-century Munich School. His cousin Julius Wolfgang Schülein was a well-known artist.
Kurt married Gertrud Weil and joined the factory of his father-in-law, Carl Weil, in Bopfingen. His sister-in-law Margarete was married to Benno Gerstle, who also came from a Munich business family.
Beginning in 1933, the family was subjected to persecution as Jews. Their business shares and real estate were forcibly sold, and they had to pay all required levies. In December 1937, Kurt Schülein’s factory was “Aryanized” and sold to the company Münzing & Comp. from Heilbronn. The family was forced to give up their residence in Bopfingen, and Kurt’s assets were frozen by the Foreign Exchange Office in Stuttgart.
In the summer of 1938, Kurt and Gertrud Schülein emigrated with their young daughter Marianne, first to Amsterdam and then to the United States in October 1938. Their household goods, including over 50 paintings, a portfolio of etchings and engravings, and two sculptures, were appraised for export. Kurt Schülein paid 6,500 Reichsmarks in “Dego” fees to the German Gold Discount Bank to be allowed to take furniture, clothing, household items, and artworks with him. Research revealed a significant discrepancy between the inventory lists from June 1938 and the actual shipping lists, which can only be explained by forced sales or losses.
According to family information, a stamp collection belonging to Kurt and paintings by Lyonel Feininger and Paul Klee were lost. In June 1939, Kurt Schülein and his family were stripped of their German citizenship and their remaining assets in Germany were confiscated. In May 1940, these confiscated assets were seized in favor of the German Reich. The authorities subsequently attempted to sell his house in Stuttgart on the renamed Eduard-Pfeiffer-Straße (now Adalbert-Stifter-Straße 49).
Betty Weil (née Guggenheimer, 1876–1939), Gertrud Schülein’s mother, moved from Bopfingen to Augsburg in November 1938. She died on October 19, 1939, in Augsburg. After her death, her household goods, furniture, and paintings were auctioned by Anton Kühling in Augsburg on November 24 and December 14, 1939. The auction results have been preserved, but the buyers were not named, and the paintings were not precisely described in the records. She had items stored with the shipping companies Weissnhorn and Klunk & Gerber, some of which were auctioned by Fritz Petzold.
Benno and Margarete Gerstle emigrated from Stuttgart to Amsterdam in 1935 and 1937, respectively. They planned to emigrate to Uruguay in the spring of 1940, but the German occupation of the Netherlands prevented their departure.
Their household goods remained behind and were taken over by a cousin, Siegfried Einstein. The Gerstle family eventually reached Montevideo in April 1941 with financial support from Kurt Schülein. Siegfried Einstein and his wife lived in Amsterdam until their deportation in 1942; Einstein was murdered in Auschwitz, while his wife survived. Research revealed that jewelry and other items from the Einstein household were handed over to Lippmann, Rosenthal and later acquired by various buyers, including Degussa and the Berlin art dealer Curt Reinheldt, who frequently purchased confiscated property in the Netherlands.
The estate of Josef Schülein, Kurt’s father, who died at Kaltenberg Castle in September 1938, was liquidated under duress. The property in Kaltenberg and his Munich house at Richard-Wagner-Straße 7 were sold to the “Brown Ribbon” (Braune Band), a Nazi organization led by Christian Weber. The sale occurred while Fritz Schülein, one of the executors of the estate, was imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp. There is no inventory list for these two properties.
Seven artworks that Josef Schülein acquired from the Heinemann Gallery are documented. One of them—a portrait now attributed to Petr Brandl (formerly attributed to Johann Kupetzky)—was located in the collection of the National Gallery in Prague. The gallery received this work in 1998 as a gift from Božena Konrádová, the sister of the actress Olga Scheinpflugová.
Artworks from Josef Schülein’s collection could not be located in the holdings of the German Hunting and Fishing Museum in Munich, even though the property on Richard-Wagner-Straße had been sold to the Brown Ribbon, whose acquired objects ended up in various collections, including the Hunting Museum.
Kurt Schülein worked in New York City for a business partner of his brother Hermann and later founded his own company, Durit Products. He died on December 31, 1963, in New York City. His daughter Marianne studied medicine and became a physician. After her husband’s death, Gertrud Schülein pursued the restitution and compensation proceedings he had initiated in Germany, which continued into the 1970s.
