Baroness Ella Parnegg 1924

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For picture description see below

JQAW# P_1924_020
Oil on canvas 125 x 90 cm
Signature: John Quincy Ɑdams 24.
Private collection, Austria
Image: private photograph of the restored painting in 2026

¾ Portrait in sitting position in oblique view from the left, the head turned towards the viewer, looking directly at him. The sitter has her legs crossed and her hands, resting on her left thigh, intertwined. She wears a sleeveless gold lamé dress, over it a light gray coat, which is trimmed at the sleeves with gray fur, her brown hair is cut short and wavy. As jewelry, she wears a single-strand pearl necklace, pearl ear clips, and a pearl ring. The sitter is sitting on a gray stone bench with a green deck with a light green hem spread over its backrest. A park landscape and a cloudy gray sky are visible in the background.

Baroness Ella (Gabriella Mária Karolina Paulina) Pollak von Parnegg, née Kövér de Gyergyószentmiklós (Kövér-Gyergyó-St.M iklós), remarried Fodor, 1.4.1892 Tiszaföldvár (Hungary) to 7.9.1981 Los Angeles, a life on two continents.
Ella Kövér was born in 1892 into a Hungarian noble family with Armenian roots and baptized as Roman Catholic. The family was originally called Ákoncz, was nobilitated in 1780, and took the name of the town of Gyergyószentmiklós (present-day Gheorgheni in Romania), where they had settled around 1700. Ella's father Miklós (1870-1930) was an actor and theater director, and her mother Blanka, née Hieronymi (1873-1911) came also from a Hungarian minor nobility family and was married a total of three times. No sources are available about Ella's childhood. On February 27, 1915, she married in Budapest the Viennese industrialist Friedrich Edwin (Frigyes Ervin) Pollak von Parnegg (1871-1930), partner of the textile company Hermann Pollak's Söhne, landowner (Marienhof estate in Siegenfeld in Burgenland on the Hungarian border) and very wealthy. This and the age difference of 20 years between the spouses suggests an "arranged" marriage, as was widespread among the upper middle classes and also the aristocracy around 1900.

The textile company Hermann Pollak's Söhne was founded by Hermann (Isak Hirsch) Pollak (1807-1881) and continued and expanded by his sons Leopold (1839-1922) and Berhard (1847-1911) Pollak. Berhard's son Dr. Bruno Pollak, as well as Leopold's sons Felix, Friedrich Edwin, Leopold (Leo), and Dr. Otto Pollak (who was married to Hilda von Auersperg, see her Adams portrait) also joined the company and were partners in the very successful firm. Also worth mentioning is Leopold's (senior) daughter Gisela, married Baroness Groedel, who was also portrayed by Adams in 1908. In 1910, the 6 members of the Pollak family without Otto taxed (at a rate below 5 percent) about 2.2 million crowns income, Friedrich Edwin about 155,000 crowns, which made them all millionaires (Sandgruber, 2013, pp. 415-416. Sandgruber classifies millionaires based on an income above 100,000 crowns annually. By comparison, a skilled/industrial worker earned about 1,000 crowns annually, and agricultural workers and domestic servants earned less than 200 crowns annually). Due to economic success and substantial charitable donations, the brothers Berhard and Leopold were nobilitized by Emperor Franz Josef I. Berhard in 1907, Leopold in 1903 with the title "Edler von Parnegg", which was raised to "Freiherr von Parnegg" in 1918. The Pollak family was Jewish. Leopold, however, converted to the Catholic faith, Bernhard, on the other hand, adopted four Stars of David as his noble coat of arms. The nobilitization also extended to family and descendants, which is why Friedrich Edwin and also Ella called themselves "Baron" and "Baroness" respectively, an emphasis that continued to be used in everyday life even after nobility titles and names (the “von”) were abolished in 1919 in Austria. The catalogue also follows this practice adopting the title as given by the artist for the Künstlerhaus exhibition in 1924 as "Baroness Ella Parnegg". Friedrich Edwin, however, officially adopted the name "Parnegg" in 1923 (Prague, October 17, 1923 file B215/ai 225461), probably also in order to discard the name Pollak, which had Jewish connotations.

Friedrich and Ella Parnegg lived mostly in Vienna in a representative apartment in Weihburggasse 30, on their estate in Siegenfeld, or on trips (Ella especially often at the feudal Südbahnhotel at the Semmering mountain). The marriage was blessed with children: Son Leopold/Poldi (Victor Maria) in 1923 and son Hermann (Johannes Friedrich) in 1925 (both died in the USA in 2003), events which the proud parents had published several times with photos in the press. The highlight of the publicity was in 1926, when the present Adams portrait of Ella was published on the front page of the Wiener Salonblatt (7.3.1926 p.1, see cross-references). Ella participated in numerous social events, especially in the network of the Hungarian diaspora in Vienna. Her spectacular gowns at the "Hungarian Ball" (a charity event of the St. Stefan Society in the rooms of the Hungarian Embassy in Vienna) or at the traditional Derby (the family Pollak-Parnegg also kept race horses) were regularly discussed in the press, such as her gold lamé dress in which she was also portrayed by Adams. This "high society" lifestyle, which was maintained even after the end of the monarchy, came to an abrupt (albeit short-lived) end on March 17, 1930. Frederick Edwin committed suicide by shooting himself in his office. The reasons for this remain a mystery. The press reports of gambling debts, or problems with the banks, but economic problems of the company were not actually present, which makes the suicide all the more puzzling. In 1932, Friedrich's brother Felix also committed suicide spectacularly in the Viennese urn cemetery; again, there seemed no obvious family or economic reasons (Sandgruber, 2013:416).

After an appropriate period of mourning and withdrawal from social life, Ella resumed her fashionable life after 1932. A press release dated 13.9.1932 (Wiener Sonntags und Montagsblatt p.8) reports a new relationship with Hungarian author, film scriptwriter, and journalist Ladislaus (László) Fodor (1898-1978). In the words of the press article, "a union of one of the most interesting men in Vienna with one of the most beautiful women," a union that also led to marriage between Ella and Ladislaus Fodor in 1941 (already in their exile in the USA). 1938 brought a dramatic turn with the so-called "Anschluss", i.e. the extermination of Austria. Ladislaus Fodor, being Jewish, had to emigrate to the USA via France. Ella followed him in 1939/1940, leaving her two children (aged 14 and 16) in Vienna in the care of her brother Istvan’s wife, who served as their nanny. (Because of their Jewish father, Ella’s sons were classified by the Nazis as “first-degree mixed-bloods” and were therefore at risk. Son Hermann was hidden by family friends, the Mautner-Markhof family, in the Zeiring provostry and thus escaped deportation.)

The exact timing and the stops along the way that led Ella from Vienna into exile in California (and to Ladislaus Fodor) are not precisely known. She likely left via Hungary in 1939–1940 and, together with Ladislaus Fodor, traveled through Mexico to reach the United States on March 1, 1941, where they were married on December 10, 1941. In 1943, Ella had to leave the U.S. and the re-entered to complete her naturalization application; after receiving her residence permit and citizenship, she took up residence in Los Angeles. After the war her sons followed: Hermann in July 1946 (US citizenship 1949, he later worked in real estate and lived in Albuquerque), Leopold/Poldi in 1948 (US citizenship 1952, he emigrated to Germany thereafter but returned late in his life to the US). Ella and Ladislaus Fodor lived in Los Angeles. Ella worked as a secretary, Ladislaus as a screenwriter in Hollywood. In the 1950s Ladislaus Fodor moved to Germany, where he worked in the film industry. However, he returned to the U.S. and to Ella at a later date. Ladislaus died in Los Angeles in 1978, Ella there on 7.9.1981 (a different source gives 9.9.1981). They are united in their common grave in the "Holywood Forever" cemetery (Garden of Memory). Their lives spanned two continents from Central Europe to North America, triggered by the catastrophes of World War II and the Shoa.

The portrait of Baroness Ella Parnegg is one of Adams' most accomplished late works. The consistent application of the Whistler-inspired tone-in-tone principle, in this case various shades of gray enlivened only by a few color accents (green, gold), results in a charismatic portrait that successfully combines both the beauty and character of the sitter and her staging in the style of the "roaring twenties." The family had color postcards of the portrait made and as the dedication 'in grateful memory to the great master, Ella P.' on the art postcard preserved from the artist's estate suggests, was obviously highly satisfied with the portrait. The painting remained in the possession of the sitter, but when she left for the United States, it initially continued to remain in Vienna and possibly in the possession of others. In 1965, the painting was exported to Albuquerque in the USA by the art dealer Kurt Kalb on behalf of Hermann Parnegg, the sitter's son, with the permission of the Federal Monuments Office (BDA Zl. 4195/65). This export was expressly not declared as a private export, which could mean that the portrait was repurchased by the family from unknown third-party ownership, or simply that the art dealer handled the transport and official procedures (export application and license) for the family. According to the estate manager, the painting was shipped to Los Angeles (that is, to Ella Parnegg-Fodor), where it remained until Ella’s death in 1981 to be subsequently bequeathed to her son, Hermann Parnegg (1925–2003), in Albuquerque. Around 2005, the painting was acquired from his estate by Clyde Hugh Formhals II (1946–2025), an art collector and member of the Cherokee Nation from Albuquerque. In 2026, the painting was acquired from his estate for an Austrian private collection and returned to Vienna.

Sources used:
Origin of the Kövér de Gyergyószentmiklós family: kind communication from Attila Kálmán based on Hungarian archival sources.
Roman Sandgruber, Traumzeit für Millionäre, Styria, WIen, 2013, 495 pp.
ANNO Austrian Newspapers Archive Online https://anno.onb.ac.at/
US immigration and death records via FamilySearch https://www.familysearch.org/en/

Cross-references

The portrait on the cover of Wiener Salonblatt 1926.

Portrait Gisela Groedel 1908 (sister-in-law, lost).

Portrait Hilda Auserperg 1924 (sister-in-law).

Exhibited

1924 Künstlerhaus Wien, XLV. Annual Exhibition #398 (KH EL 72 1924/25 #2306)

Literature

APH, catalog raisonné JQA 1995, p. 186, cat.#153, no illus.

Provenance

1924–1981 the sitter, Vienna and Los Angeles.
1981–ca. 2005 Her son Hermann Parnegg, Albuquerque.
ca. 2005–2025 From his estate to: Clyde Hugh Formhals II, Albuquerque.
2026 Acquired from his estate, private collection, Austria.