Oskar Federer

Oskar Federer (born May 4, 1884, in Jičín – died July 21 1968 in Canada) was a Jewish industrialist living in Czechoslovakia. Forced to flee by the Nazis, his property and art collection were plundered first by Nazis and later by the communist regime in Czechoslovia.

Businessman
In the journal Theresienstädter Studien und Dokumente, Federer was described as "one of the most important and exciting personalities of the Czechoslovak economy in the interwar period".

Federer worked with the Viennese Rothschilds for over thirty years, and was the general director of the Vitkovice Mining and Ironworks Union, one of the largest industrial firms in the country.

Art collector
Federer's art collection included works by Lovis Corinth, Claude Monet, and Paul Gauguin.

Nazi persecution
Persecuted by the Nazis because of his Jewish heritage, he emigrated to Canada. Most of his property, including most of his art collection was confiscated by the Nazis. After the war, the paintings came into the possession of the Czechoslovak state.

Legacy
The Canadian heirs of Oskar Federer filed restitution claims against several Czech galleries, obtaining the restitution of twenty paintings that belonged to Oskar Federer before the Second World War. Works included those by Edvard Munch, Oskar Kokoschka, Otakar Nejedlý and Antonín Slavíček. Oscar Federer's grandson demanded the return of the paintings in the early 1990s.

However, in 2009 the Czech "Federer collection" was auctioned at Sotheby's.

In 2003, historian Magda Veselská published a biography of Oskar Federer entitled Oskar Federer - businessman and art collector (Oskar Federer - Unternehmer und Kunstsammler)