Carl Ostertag – I

Born in 1910 in Stuttgart, Carl Ostertag led quite a life, winding up in the San Francisco Bay Area where I met him in the art gallery maintained by Gump’s in its north side Post Street location; he curated its contents at two different periods.

The only Wikipedia entry for Carl occurs in connection with Vicki Baum and letters exchanged Otherwise he is simply a memory in the people who knew him; he is far too interesting not to withhold what I remember of him and because I like to hear other people’s life stories, I can amplify the entry with anecdotes. Carl’s life was one reflecting the agility and persistence of German Jews in the mid-twentieth century lucky enough to leave continental Europe prior to World War II.

Among his considerable qualities, Carl Ostertag also possessed a keen perception for personalities worth cultivating and cultivating them without being an example of toadyism. I was lucky enough to locate a paragraph on his career in Wikipedia because of his connection with Vicki Baum. There I learned he had studied at both the University of Vienna and the Sorbonne, studying “fine arts, art history, dance and music.”

Carl was perhaps five feet six inches, with pale eyes I remember as blue, a skin acquiring slight streaks of veins around his nostrils as he aged, an aquiline nose which also was short, and wavy hair receding as it greyed. He was one of the most meticulously dressed men I ever encountered with some regularity, but one preferring to exhibit a casual air, usually with a scarf at the neck. His speech carried touches of music along with the occasional divulgence that German was his mother tongue. He also possessed the capacity for story-telling both precise and with undertones of its emotional strength or absurdity.

His father was an industrialist, his mother an organist and he had one brother. The first story he mentioned about his pre-US life was advice from his father. “Go to Spain, you will not be bothered there.” In his slightly accented, modulated voice, Carl continued, “I was arrested in Barcelona, spent seventy two hours in jail, until my father was able to secure my release.”

If memory serves, Carl’s next move was to immigrate to England. Gravitating to the London dance world, he started studying with Marie Rambert. It would take some research to determine whether he actually danced in her company, but I do know he performed in ensembles at a time when any young man with some serious training was welcomed to appear with struggling companies.

Late in our friendship, Carl mentioned his father died in Switzerland, though his mother remained in Germany. “I tried to persuade her to come to England,” he said. “She was an organist and a good one and there always was work for one in England.” He paused, “She refused and died in Auschwitz.”

His brother he said lived in Canada, working for a non-profit humanitarian organization, and had one son. He also told me that Ostertag in German means “Easter Day.”

He one time waxed nostalgic over Stuttgart and its location which he said was surrounded by hills, providing a self-contained feeling. Another memory was of plum trees in late summer, early fall.

It was at Rambert’s Mercury Theatre that he met Agnes de Mille. As he remarked to me, “After meeting her, I knew she was something.” Their friendship became life-long; she called him “Carlein,” and he said he researched some of her books.

I never learned exactly how Carl immigrated to the United States, but suspect he applied for immigration as soon as he reached England. His first stop was doubtless New York City, where he was in the audience at the premiere of Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo with Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Given the friendship, I’m sure he also was present at the Oklahoma opening.

Carl’s wartime occupation, however, was in translating German in an appropriate OWI office in Washington. That office included Ruth Lert, who married Wolfgang Lert, also working at OWI. Lert became a man well known for his partnership in importing the best European skis, and still skiing at 90. Lert’s mother was Vicki Baum, so one can assume this is how Carl connected with the novelist. Wolfgang and Ruth Lert moved to San Francisco. I met Ruth Lert through Carl in San Francisco.

I encountered Carl Ostertag in the Gump gallery, drawn by a Chicano artist’s exhibit whom I had met at Pomona College. Apparently my relative degree of curiosity intrigued him plus purchasing an etching on time. It wasn’t long after that he took a job in the cultural arm of the U.S. foreign service and was stationed in Bangkok, where he arranged exhibits of American artists, and, I would assume, managed their local itineraries and appearances. With the advent of Ronald Reagan, such cultural outreach withered appreciably.

He returned to San Francisco, and eventually to Gumps where he worked until Social Security kicked in. Apparently, however, he had acquired sculpture while in Southeast Asia. Either one or several pieces were sold to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art [LACMA] enabling him to buy a Volkswagon.

Somewhere in between, before returning to Gumps, he hired himself as a cook to a wealthy San Francisco family to enable him to reach Europe. He recounted working in the kitchen in Switzerland when a dancer, also from San Francisco, entered, proceeding to tell him she was a ballerina. That same dancer also so identified herself on a long distance call to Germany when he was working as a night operator when it was still necessary to place overseas calls via human beings.

I did not encounter Carl for the second time until the Joffrey Ballet started performing at San Francisco Opera House, sponsored by San Francisco Symphony, with some management skills by Leon Kalimos. That is another somewhat extended story.