Mario Uzielli
1888 - 1973

The Uzielli family can be found in the address books of the city of Frankfurt on the Main for the first time in 1883: Lazzaro Uzielli (1861-1943), who lived at Oeder Weg 9, worked as a singing teacher at the Hoch Conservatory, which had only been founded a few years earlier. Dr. Clara Schumann was his colleague there. Born in Florence, Uzielli came from an Italian Jewish family and was a trained pianist and music teacher. He had studied in Florence (Italy) with Luigi Vannuccini and Giuseppi Buonamici, in Berlin (Germany) with Ernst Rudorff and in Frankfurt on the Main with Clara Schumann and Joachim Raff.

Lazzaro Uzielli was married to the Christian singer Julia Häring (1859-1924). She came from Liestal in Switzerland and, as the daughter of an organist and a soprano, had also completed a musical education. A contemporary wrote that there had rarely been a singer who combined all the advantages of Julia Uzielli: "the wonderful soft and noble voice, the elegant performance, the full art of singing, the greatest musical security - Mrs. Uzielli could easily conduct an orchestra - and finally the beauty of her appearance." For example, she appeared as a soloist with the Frankfurt Cäcilienchor in 1888, 1891, 1893 and 1897.

The Uzielli couple had three sons: Guido (1887-1914), Mario (1888-1973) and Alberto (1896-1973). Mario was a Protestant, like his mother. Unlike his brothers, who, like their parents, embarked on a musical career, Mario Uzielli decided to train with the Robert Koch company. Its famous namesake (who died in 1902) was a court jeweler and is buried in the Frankfurt Jewish cemetery on Rat-Beil-Street. The Robert Koch company in Frankfurt on the Main was probably one of the most important jewelers in the world at the time. In 1907, his father moved from the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt to the Cologne Conservatory. Lazzaro Uzielli undertook numerous concert tours through Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and the Netherlands.

When the First World War broke out in 1914, Uzielli was 26 years old. He became part of Infantry Regiment No. 81, 3rd Company. In the spring of 1916, in the rank of lieutenant in the reserves, he was seriously wounded and lost an eye. Whether the thought of having narrowly escaped death was a motivating factor can only be conjectured: in the middle of the war and only a year after his serious wounding, he married Valerie Frieda Lust (1893-1988) on April 12, 1917. The witnesses to the marriage were the radiologist Dr. Wolfgang Türk (1878-1922) and the editor Dr. Heinrich Simon (1880-1941), co-publisher of the famous "Frankfurter Zeitung" since 1916 and who emigrated to France in 1934.

On her paternal side, Valerie came from the Jewish Lust banking family. Her father Heinrich, called Henri, Friedrich Lust (1853-1942) owned a house in the southern Frankfurt neighborhood Westend at Schwindstraße 13 and later a villa north of the Palmengarten at Am Leonhardsbrunn 5. He was the owner of the banking house H. F. Lust at Kaiserstraße 16. Her mother Nelli Sara (1868-1963) was born a Seligmann. The Jewish Seligmanns were also successful bankers.

Their first child, son Claudio (also Claude) (1918-1981), was born the year after the wedding. Daughter Gabriele (also Gabriella) Uzielli (1921-2015) followed three years later. Based on a Hamburg auction catalog from 1963, we know that Gabriele was baptized a Protestant, probably by the well-known Protestant theologian Adolf Deißmann (1866-1937). The Mario Uzielli family initially lived at Holzhausenstrasse 17 for rent; the 1928 Franfurt directory then listed Mario Uzielli for the first time as the owner of the house at Stettenstrasse 52, not far from Adickesallee.

In 1918, Mario Uzielli and Heinrich Tiedemann were listed for the first time in the Frankfurt directory as the owners of the Reitz & Köhler bookshop. While this bookshop had previously positioned itself on the market with a very wide range of products, Tiedemann and Uzielli changed the focus: they now concentrated on antiquarian books and "championed the well-printed and well-bound books of the various presses, especially the Kleukens and Ernst Ludwig presses". Accordingly, the periodical "Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel" reported on the book at the Frankfurt Spring Fair on April 30, 1923: "The publishing house Tiedemann & Uzielli presented some precious bibliophile gifts from the Kleukens press."

Although the focus at this time was still on books, Uzielli was already showing works by the Jewish Russian-French painter Marc Chagall at the end of 1918. Works by Wassily Kandinsky followed later. Even "Max Beckmann was often given the opportunity to hang his new paintings in Schillerstraße, although few people liked him." The two owners ran the business under the old name Reitz & Köhler until 1923, when they changed their name to Buchantiquariat Tiedemann & Uzielli GmbH. It was not only in terms of content that the two moved away from books as mass-produced goods towards books as works of art. They also moved closer to art geographically, as between 1923 and 1925 they shared their store at Schillerstraße 15 with the legendary Düsseldorf art dealer Alfred Flechtheim (1878-1937).

The Frankfurt-born journalist Erich Pfeiffer-Belli wrote in his memoirs that when the two took over "the old premises diagonally opposite on the second floor of Schillerstraße 15 [...] a modern bookshop [had] developed, which remained a leading name in Frankfurt for years, until the ambitious Tiedemann found the Frankfurt field too narrow and left for Berlin, while Mario Uzielli, who switched to "antiquarian bookseller", became a knowledgeable and sought-after specialist."

It is unclear why Tiedemann and Uzielli actually parted company in 1925. By his own account, Mario Uzielli's business was not doing badly in the years that followed. According to an advertisement from 1927, German and French literature, illustrated books from the 15th to 19th centuries, book bindings, copper engravings and woodcuts from the 15th to 18th centuries, East Asian graphics and autographs were the main focus of Uzielli's business. Frankfurt-born Wilhelm Henrich (1906-1980), who had started as an apprentice in the store, became his employee. Mario Uzielli's connection to the latest and most recent art can be seen from the fact that the book and art shop acted as a sales outlet for works from the workshops of the Frankfurt Art School from 1928. The Austrian painter Marie Elisabeth Wrede (1898-1981), who was married to a grandson of Charles Hallgarten (1838-1908), also showed her drawings at Uzielli in the same year. The following year, it was poster works by the French artist Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec that he presented to the Frankfurt public.

In addition to contemporary art, Uzielli's repertoire also included older art. In 1935, he was able to sell two still lifes of food by Justus Juncker to the Historical Museum in Frankfurt on the Main. In the same year, he also succeeded in selling several drawings by the late Romantic artist Alfred Rethel to the Kunstsammlungen Düsseldorf. However, he was forced to close his business in 1935 due to his Jewish ancestry and his marriage to a Jewish woman.

Little is known about Mario Uzielli's activities in the Frankfurt on the Main branch of the German and Austrian Alpine Club due to a lack of files. In 1914, at the age of 26, he joined the Frankfurt section. His name can be found in the annual report of this section as early as the following year, but not to say that Mario Uzielli had taken part in this or that hike. Rather, it was to announce that Uzielli had been awarded the Iron Cross for his military actions in the first World War. This war had a major impact on the Alpine Club: In addition to those honored, there were numerous casualties; the "weekly meetings were poorly attended", over a hundred "members in the field did not find the opportunity to pay [...] the contribution for the past year", so that the contributions were advanced from the section treasury to the main treasury. The Frankfurt "working area in the Alps" was closed, visits to the huts, hikes or other events were no longer possible, and the association's huts were also converted for military purposes. As a "front-line fighter", Mario Uzielli was also unable to take part in events organized by the Frankfurt on the Main section.

We know very little about Uzielli's other activities in the section. In the 1925 list of members, he is listed as having joined in 1914, meaning that he had been a member of the Frankfurt on the Main section without interruption up until then, despite the World War and the post-war turmoil. According to the section's News Bulletin of June 1932, Mario Uzielli, together with Wilhelm Kratz, who had been a member of the Section since 1903, recommended the admission of Dr. Alfred Wolters, Director of the Städtische Galerie Frankfurt on the Main, and his daughter Renate Wolters, a student, both living at Morgensternstrasse 30. In February 1933, the section's News Bulletin reported that he, together with Dr. A. Salomon, had recommended the admission of Walter Bertheim, merchant, Waidmannstrasse 21. Consequently, Mario Uzielli supported the Section by recruiting new members even at the beginning of the Nazi dictatorship.

If one considers his membership in conjunction with his professional orientation, this combination was not uncommon. In addition to him, numerous people from Frankfurt's artistic and cultural life were members of the Frankfurt on the Main section of the German and Austrian Alpine Club:

• Margarete Auguste Friederike, née Walluf (1862-1945), wife of the art dealer Gottfried Andreas from the art dealership J. P. Schneider jr. who had joined the section in 1905,
• the two auctioneers Adolf Bangel (1853-1929) and Ludwig Bangel (1850-1925), owner of the Rudolf Bangel auction house, both of whom joined in 1895,
• Städel board member Dr. Alexander Berg (1868-1960), who joined in 1913,
• the art collectors Karl Bacher (1859-1942; joined in 1904), Konrad Binding (1846-1933), Karl Herxheimer (1861-1942; joined in 1905), Robert von Hirsch (1883-1977; joined in 1908), Wilhelm Kratz (1873-1945; joined in 1903), August Mouson (1874-1958; joined in 1904), Simon Ravenstein (1844-1932; joined in 1881), Justizrat Dr. Paul Roediger (1859-1938; joined in 1892) and Dr. Gustav Spier (1875-1952; joined in 1905).

During the Weimar Republic, other art enthusiasts were to join the Frankfurt on the Main section, such as the junior manager of J. P. Schneider jr. Fritz Andreas (1888-1972; joined in 1921), the photographic artist Nini Hess (1884-1942; joined in 1921) and the art-collecting husband of the famous mountaineer Eleonore Noll-Hasenclever, Johannes Noll (1863-1931; joined in 1919).

On August 29, 1935, Mario Uzielli received a letter from the Nazi "Reichskammer der Bildenden Künste" in Berlin accusing him of having neither the "personal qualities" nor the "reliability" required to "contribute to the promotion of German culture in responsibility towards the people and the Reich". According to the anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws passed in September 1935, he was considered a so-called "first-degree half-breed" (in German: "Mischling ersten Grades"). Mario Uzielli was also married to Valerie Frieda Lust, a woman persecuted as a "full Jew". As a consequence, he was expelled from the Reichskammer and had to liquidate his business within just four weeks. As a result, Mario Uzielli consigned numerous objects to the Berlin auction house Paul Graupe in December 1935. The auction was entitled "Bibliography, art literature, hand drawings, miniatures, luxury and press prints, graphic art, hand drawings, miniatures" and a total of 2,526 lots were called. Almost 20 percent of the called lots came from the consignor with the number 10: "M. U. ... Frankfurt", i.e. Mario Uzielli.

In 1936, Mario and Valerie Uzielli emigrated from Frankfurt on the Main to Liestal near Basel, birthplace of Mario's mother Julia. The couple were in their mid-40ies, their son Claudio was 18 and their daughter Gabriele 15 years old. According to the German "Reichsanzeiger" of May 13, 1939, No. 109, the family of four was deprived of their German citizenship under Nos. 122 to 125.

In Switzerland, Mario Uzielli was officially unable to open his own business for many years, meaning that he did not earn an active income until 1947. During these years, the family lived off the support of one of Valerie Uzielli's aunts, Georgette Hirsch, née Seligmann, from London. It was not until 1946 that Mario Uzielli was granted Swiss citizenship and thus the opportunity to finally open a business. The collector William Matheson, who had founded the Olten Book Lovers Association in 1936, mentioned that Mario Uzielli in Liestal had sold him a few "but some of the most beautiful autographs [...] extremely cheaply".

From July 1, 1937, former employee Wilhelm Henrich continued to run the art dealership Mario Uzielli had left behind in Frankfurt on the Main. "As a friend and employee", he took over some of the stock and inventory that Uzielli had had to leave behind. According to the descendants of both families, the two men had been close friends. This situation remained unaffected by persecution, emigration and the Second World War. When travel became possible again without restrictions from 1945, the Uzielli and Henrich families maintained close and regular contact for decades. Mario Uzielli did not return to Frankfurt, however, but kept his permanent residence in Switzerland.

In 1954, the Frankfurt lawyer Max L. Cahn filed an application on behalf of Mario Uzielli "for compensation for damage to his professional advancement" with the compensation authority in Wiesbaden. This was approved in 1957. Uzielli also applied for compensation for the forced move to Switzerland and the resulting costs. When asked about the former income of his former teacher and boss, Wilhelm Henrich stated in 1961 that Uzielli had been an "avant-gardist of modern art" who had been the first in Germany to exhibit numerous "artists who are highly paid today". With regard to the compensation sums demanded by Uzielli, Henrich stated: "His losses due to emigration are certainly greater than his claims."

Valeri Frieda Uzielli's parents, Heinrich Friedrich and Nelli Lust, were able to emigrate to Switzerland in the summer of 1938. They first lived with their daughter in Liestal and from July 1938 in Basel. Heinrich Lust died there in February 1942, while Nelli Lust died in Basel in June 1963. In order to finance her living expenses, she sold works of art at an auction at Galerie Fischer in September 1943. At least 13 paintings from the "H. F. Lust Collection, Basel", mainly by Dutch masters, including the still life by Rudolf Levy, which is now in the Buchheim Museum in Bernried (near Munich), were auctioned off.

In London in 1953, the son Claudio Uzielli emigrated to Great Britain and married Mary Bottrell, born in June 1923. He had two daughters with her in London named Clare and Veronica and, after emigrating to Toronto (Canada) in 1959, a son named Stephen. He died in Canada in 1981, while his wife Mary Uzielli died in October 2019 at the age of 96.