Adolf Kohner

Dr. Adolf Baron Kohner de Szászberek

1866-1937

Adolf Kohner was the most well known of all the Kohner family members. Although now forgotten by most modern day Hungarians, at the height of his success, he was one of the richest men in Hungary. Adolf was a quintessential renaissance man. Not only did his intelligence made him a very successful business man, but it also contributed to his many varied interests and skills. 

The only son of Karoly and Ida Stein Kohner, Adolf was born in Budapest in 1866. As a young man, Adolf received a Ph.D. in chemistry from Humbold University in Berlin, he was a talented violin player, sat on the board of many Hungarian Jewish organizations, and was an avid sportsman. Although the Kohner family had already begun to establish its wealth and place in the Hungarian banking world before Adolf took over the family businesses, he helped bring the Kohner’s wealth and social status to the next level. 

Aside from his wealth, Adolf was most well known for his art collections and patronage. Adolf’s father was also an art collector, and he instilled those interests in his only child who lived into adulthood. While Adolf’s father had focused on rugs and Dutch masters, Adolf instead developed an interest in more “modern” art such as the impressionists, as well as focusing on Hungarian artists.

 Adolf  started collecting paintings, etc. with an almost manic energy. He purchased paintings by Gauguin, Cezanne, Monet, Van Gogh, as well as Hungarian artists such as Ferenczy and Fenyes. He also became a patron for well known musicians. He sponsored the famous Hungarian composer Bela Bartok, and Bartok would sometimes play at some of Adolf’s evening salons.

In order to support Hungarian artists, Kohner opened up an artist colony in Szolnok, Hungary. He also purchased a family  “castle” in Szaszberek, Hungary that included a state of the art working farm where he supported state of the art agricultural farming techniques, The Szaszberek estate became a gathering place for the entire extended Kohner family. 

Adolf was a cousin of my great grandfather Willy, but he also married one of Willy’s sisters, Helene Kohner. The Kohners, like many other upper class Jewish families, often married  cousins and other extended family members.

 Adolf and Helene had four children that lived to adulthood–a son Karoly, who died in WWI, and three daughters, Ida, Louisa, and Katalin. The three daughters went on to have families of their own. Ida was a talented painter herself, and married Istvan Farkas, a fellow painter whose family owned a Hungarian publishing house. She and Istvan had three children, A daughter, Judit, and two sons, Paulo and Charles. Louisa married a man named Gedeon Dirsztay and had two children, a daughter Emma and a son Bela. Katalin married Antal Lukacs, and she had two children, Hanna "Mary Jane" and Anthony Lukacs.