Erich Šlomović ( sr-Latn, Erih Šlomović, also known as Erich Chlomovitch) (1915–1942) was a Yugoslav art collector. He was an assistant and protégé of

Ambroise Vollard Ambroise Vollard (3 July 1866 – 21 July 1939) was a French art dealer who is regarded as one of the most important dealers in French contemporary art at the beginning of the twentieth century. He is credited with providing exposure and emotio ...

Early life

Šlomović was born in

Đakovo Đakovo (; hu, Diakovár) is a town in the region of Slavonia, Croatia. Đakovo is the centre of the fertile and rich Đakovo region ( hr, Đakovština ). Etymology The etymology of the name is the gr, διάκος (diákos) in Slavic form đ ...

(

Austro-Hungarian Empire Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

) in 1915 to a Jewish family of Bernard and Roza Šlomović. He had a brother, Egon. Ha-Kol (Glasilo Židovske zajednice u Hrvatskoj); Vesna Domany Hardy; ''O zbirci Ericha Šlomovića''; stranica 43, 44, 45, 46; broj 103, siječanj / veljača 2008.

Career

In the 1930s, Šlomović moved to Paris, where he was befriended by legendary art collector

. Through Vollard, Šlomović met the greatest artists of the age, including Picasso, Matisse, Cocteau, Rouault among others, and was able to amass an impressive personal collection of some 600 works. Vollard died in a car accident in July 1939. Shortly after that, with France on the brink of Nazi invasion, Šlomović decided to return to Yugoslavia, where the war had not yet spread. He left about 200 artworks in a vault in the Société Générale in Paris, and the rest he had shipped via diplomatic pouch to Belgrade. These were exhibited at a highly acclaimed exhibition in Zagreb in 1940.

World War II

During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, with the

Independent State of Croatia The Independent State of Croatia ( sh, Nezavisna Država Hrvatska, NDH; german: Unabhängiger Staat Kroatien; it, Stato indipendente di Croazia) was a World War II-era puppet state of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy (1922–1943), Fascist It ...

establishment in 1941, Šlomović and his family moved to the village of Bačina in

Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian language, Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe, Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Bas ...

in an attempt to save themselves. While in Bačina, Šlomović hid the paintings he brought with him in a double wall. Later, as a part of the German reprisals of 100 Serbian men shot for every German soldier killed, Bernard, Erich and Egon were taken to detention camp in

Ćuprija Ćuprija (Serbian Cyrillic: Ћуприја, ) is a town and municipality located in the Pomoravlje District of central Serbia. The population of the town is 19,380, while the municipality has 30,645 inhabitants. History The Romans founded the ...

. Soon after, they were all killed. Erich's mother Roza and a female distant in-law Mara, born a Serbian Orthodox and converted to Judaism when she married Roza Šlomović's nephew Fridrih Hercler, were not touched and neither was his collection. Roza died in a train accident, together with Mara's children, while transporting the collection to

Belgrade Belgrade ( , ;, ; Names of European cities in different languages: B, names in other languages) is the Capital city, capital and List of cities in Serbia, largest city in Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers a ...

which had been liberated by the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

and the Josip Broz's partisan units. The accident happened on 31st Dec 1944 in Velika Plana, Serbia. Mara survived the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...

hidden by the local population. (7) Mara then went on to remarry with a person who had also lost his wife and children during WWII and became the mother of

David Albahari David Albahari (, ; born 15 March 1948)Biography
at

and his sister.https://www.novosti.rs/vesti/kultura.71.html:377911-Tragedija-na-sinama

Legacy

After his death, Šlomović's mother donated his collection to the National Museum of Serbia. In 1989 Veljko Bulajić directed ''

Donator ''Donator'' is a Croatian film directed by Veljko Bulajić Veljko Bulajić (born 22 March 1928) is a Montenegrins of Croatia, Montenegrin film director and UNESCO Kalinga Prize recipient. He has spent the majority of his life working in Croati ...

'', a movie dedicated to Šlomović's tragic life while in 2004

Momo Kapor Momčilo "Momo" Kapor ( sr-cyr, Момчило Момо Капор; 8 April 1937 – 3 March 2010) was a Serbian novelist and painter. He authored several screenplays, over forty novels, short stories, travel and autobiographic books and essays. H ...

wrote a book about his life. The paintings in the Société Generale bank were discovered in 1979 when the bank was allowed to open the vault to recover unpaid storage fees. There is a legal dispute over the ownership of those paintings.

References

External links