Martha Nierenberg (March 12, 1924 – June 27, 2020) (known in full as Martha ''née'' Weiss de Csepel Nierenberg), was a Hungarian-born American businesswoman who co-founded

Dansk International Designs Dansk Designs (also known as Dansk International Designs starting in 1954) is an American distributor and retailer of cookware, tableware, and other home accessories based in Mount Kisco, New York. In 2021, the brand Dansk was acquired by Foo ...

Early life and education

Nierenberg was born in

Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...

on March 12, 1924, into one of Hungary's wealthiest families. She was the daughter of Alfonz Weiss de Csepel, who headed the

Manfréd Weiss Steel and Metal Works The Weiss Manfréd Acél- és Fémművek ("Manfréd Weiss Steel and Metal Works"), or colloquially Csepel Művek ("Csepel Works") was one of the largest machine factories in Hungary, located on Csepel island in the southern part of Budapest, fo ...

and its foundation and Erzsbet Herzog Weiss de Csepel, a

medical doctor A physician, medical practitioner (British English), medical doctor, or simply doctor is a health professional who practices medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring health through the study, diagnosis, prognosis ...

who had studied psychiatry in Vienna with

Anna Freud Anna Freud CBE ( ; ; 3 December 1895 – 9 October 1982) was a British psychoanalyst of Austrian Jewish descent. She was born in Vienna, the sixth and youngest child of Sigmund Freud and Martha Bernays. She followed the path of her father a ...

. She had two brothers (John, 1936–2017) and a sister (Mary Radcliffe). Jewish by birth, Martha attended a Calvinist school, to focus on science and math, then enrolled in a science college in Budapest. Her maternal grandfather, the banker Baron Mór Lipót Herzog (1869 – 1934), numbered among Europe's leading art and antiquities collectors. Her paternal grandfather, Manfred Weiss de Csepel, founded the Manfred Weiss Steel and Metal Works, Hungary's largest machine factory, employing 40,000 people once. She evaded capture during the World War II by fleeing via Austria to Portugal in 1944. After more than a year there, she emigrated with her mother to the United States on 27 December 1946.

Career

A scientist who spoke six languages, Martha received a Master of Science degree in

biochemistry Biochemistry, or biological chemistry, is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology, a ...

from

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...

and conducted research at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

and the

Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research The Rockefeller University is a private biomedical research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and provides doctoral and postdoctoral education. It is classified ...

in Manhattan.

Founding of Dansk International Designs

On a trip to

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

in 1954, the Nierenbergs sought out products to manufacture in the U.S. for American consumers. At the Danish museum of arts and crafts—Kunsthandwaerkmuseet (today called the

Danish Museum of Art & Design The Designmuseum Denmark () is a museum in Copenhagen for Danish and international design and crafts. It features works of famous Danish designers like Arne Jacobsen, Jacob Jensen and Kaare Klint, who was one of the two architects who remodele ...

—Kunstindustrimuseet) they noted

teak Teak (''Tectona grandis'') is a tropical hardwood tree species in the family Lamiaceae. It is a large, deciduous tree that occurs in mixed hardwood forests. ''Tectona grandis'' has small, fragrant white flowers arranged in dense clusters (panic ...

and

stainless steel Stainless steel, also known as inox, corrosion-resistant steel (CRES), or rustless steel, is an iron-based alloy that contains chromium, making it resistant to rust and corrosion. Stainless steel's resistance to corrosion comes from its chromi ...

cutlery Cutlery (also referred to as silverware, flatware, or tableware) includes any hand implement used in preparing, serving, and especially eating food in Western culture. A person who makes or sells cutlery is called a cutler. While most cutlers ...

by Jens Quistgaard. The Nierenbergs recruited Quistgaard to manufacture the cutlery, which became Dansk Designs' first product, ''Fjord'' flatware. That same year, the Nierenbergs established Dansk in the garage of their

Great Neck, New York Great Neck is a region contained within Nassau County, New York, Nassau County, New York (state), New York, on Long Island, which covers a peninsula on the North Shore (Long Island), North Shore and includes nine incorporated villages, among th ...

, home, with Quistgaard as its founding designer.

Personal

She met Theodore David Nierenberg (1923 – 2009), the owner of a metal finishing company, at the Broadway premiere of ''

Guys and Dolls ''Guys and Dolls'' is a musical theater, musical with music and lyrics by Frank Loesser and book by Jo Swerling and Abe Burrows. It is based on "The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown" (1933) and "Blood Pressure", which are two short stories by Damon Run ...

'' in 1950. They married in 1951, moved to Great Neck, on Long Island, and had four children – Lisa, Karin Weisburgh, Peter and Al. The family lived in Armonk from 1963 to 2013. In 1954, she and Nierenberg founded the Dansk Designs housewares company. She died on June 27, 2020, in Rye, New York.

Claims for restitution of art

In 1995 Nierenberg commenced a decades-long Holocaust art restitution battle with the Republic of Hungary that would count as one of the highest-value cases ever pursued by a single family. Among the 44 paintings Hungary has refused to return are four works by

El Greco Doménikos Theotokópoulos (, ; 1 October 1541 7 April 1614), most widely known as El Greco (; "The Greek"), was a Greek painter, sculptor and architect of the Spanish Renaissance, regarded as one of the greatest artists of all time. ...

, and others by Zurbarán,

Velázquez Velázquez, also Velazquez, Velásquez or Velasquez (, ), is a surname from Spain. It is a patronymic name, meaning "son of Velasco". References to "Velazquez" without a first name are often to the Spanish painter, Diego Velázquez. Notable peo ...

Corot CoRoT (French: ; English: Convection, Rotation and planetary Transits) was a space telescope mission which operated from 2006 to 2013. The mission's two objectives were to search for extrasolar planets with short orbital periods, particularly t ...

Courbet Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( ; ; ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and the ...

, and

Lucas Cranach the Elder Lucas Cranach the Elder ( ; – 16 October 1553) was a German Renaissance painter and printmaker in woodcut and engraving. He was court painter to the Electors of Saxony for most of his career, and is known for his portraits, both of German ...

. Nierenberg's trustee, her granddaughter Robin Bunevich, estimated the collection to be worth $100 million. in 2010, Nierenberg's nephew, David, with funding from the billionaire philanthropist Ronald S. Lauder, filed suit in United States District Court for the District of Columbia. In June 2017, Judge Tatel found the

Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act The Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act of 1976 (FSIA) is a United States law, codified at Title 28, §§ 1330, 1332, 1391(f), 1441(d), and 1602–1611 of the United States Code, that established criteria as to whether a foreign sovereign state (o ...

did not prevent the survivors of a Holocaust victim from suing to recover art stolen by

Nazi plunder Nazi plunder () was organized stealing of art and other items which occurred as a result of the Art theft and looting during World War II, organized looting of European countries during the time of the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, Germany. Jewi ...

ers, over the partial dissent of Senior Judge

A. Raymond Randolph Arthur Raymond Randolph (born November 1, 1943) is an American lawyer and jurist serving as a senior U.S. circuit judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. He was appointed to the D.C. Circuit in 1990 by President George H. ...

. In 2017, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.

References

External links

Hungary On Trial
private website devoted to the Herzog estate claims. {{DEFAULTSORT:Nierenberg, Martha Hungarian art collectors People from Armonk, New York Businesspeople from New York (state) People from Mount Kisco, New York 1924 births 2020 deaths Radcliffe College alumni Hungarian emigrants to the United States Hungarian expatriates in Portugal People from Budapest Women art collectors Scientists from New York (state) 20th-century American women scientists Hungarian Jews Jewish art collectors American women company founders American company founders Jewish American scientists 21st-century American Jews 21st-century American women