Serena (Szeréna) Pulitzer Lederer (20 May 1867 in – 27 March 1943) was an Austro-Hungarian art collector and the spouse of the industrial magnate August Lederer, close friend of Gustav Klimt and instrumental in the constitution of the collection of Klimt's art pieces.
Born in Budapest into a wealthy Jewish family (grandniece of the U.S. journalist Joseph Pulitzer), Serena was known for being a beauty in her youth and later a Grande Dame. She married August Lederer on 5 June 1892 at the Rabbinat of Pest. The family resided in Raab (Győr), in the Bartensteingasse n° 8 in Vienna and at the castle Ledererschlössel in Weidlingau.
As early as 1888, Gustav Klimt made a first miniature portrait of the young and then unmarried Serena Lederer for his work "Audience Room in the Old Burgtheater".[1] In Vienna, one room of the flat was dedicated to Klimt works.The painting of Szeréna Lederer done in 1899 was the origin of a close friendship. On Klimt's recommendation, in 1912, Egon Schiele was introduced to the Lederer family and became friends with Erich Lederer, the youngest son.Szeréna Lederer was instrumental in the collection of Klimt's work. There are portraits of her mother Charlotte Pulitzer,[2] her daughter Elisabeth Bachofen-Echt [3] and herself by the artist.[4] It has been suggested Elisabeth was the biological daughter of Lederer and Klimt.[5]
According to son Erich Lederer (1896–1985), the residence had been furnished by the Wiener Werkstätte founded by Josef Hoffmann and Koloman Moser in Vienna in 1903. The furnishings had been entrusted to Eduard Josef Wimmer-Wisgrill[6]
The Lederer collection was confiscated from Serena in 1940 and she fled to Budapest, where she died three years later. The Gestapo transferred the collection to Immendorf Castle, but the castle was set on fire in May, 1945 so that it would not fall into the hands of the Allies and some artworks in the collection were destroyed.[7] However some of the artworks reappeared after the war.[8] The Lederer's son Erich and his wife Elisabeth took refuge in Switzerland.[9]
After the war, 459 works by Gustav Klimt and 77 by Egon Schiele were returned to the Lederers, however most of the artworks were not found. Works that were recovered, however, could not be moved out of Austria, which forbade the Lederer family from exporting Klimt's masterpiece "Beethoven Frieze" to Switzerland. [10] In 2018, the Lederer heirs went to court in Switzerland to attempt to oblige a Swiss art dealer Galerie Kornfeld to answer questions about artworks from the Lederer collection that had reappeared after the war with Wolfgang, Hildebrand et Cornelius Gurlitt. Also in 2018, it was discovered that Austrian authorities had restituted one of the Lederer's Klimts, Apple Tree II, to the wrong family.[11] [12]
One of the paintings that Serena Lederer had owned, Klimt's Apple Tree II, was restituted to the wrong family after an investigation by the Art Restitution Advisory Board that mistakenly confused the Klimt with another different painting.[13]
