- Jindřich Waldes
Jindřich Waldes
2 July 1876 Nemyšl u Tábora – May 1941Havana (precise date of death is not known), leading industrialist, founder of Waldes Koh-i-noor Company, Czech patriot and art collector.Life
Karel Waldes, father of Jindřich, had an inn and a small haberdashery shop in the village of Nemyšl near the town of
Tábor in southernBohemia . He wanted his son to continue his business but Jindřich found a position of a clerk at the firm of Eduard Lokesch and Son inPrague . This company made buttons and cufflinks. As Waldes had a good knowledge of languages he became Lokesch’s business agent and travelled the world on behalf of the firm.In 1902 together with an engineer Hynek Puc (1856-1938) Waldes left Lokesch and founded his own company Waldes a spol. A year later Puc invented a special machine that inserted a small spring into concealed dress fasteners, the main product of the new firm. The new machine supplemented labour of ten skilled workers. With the increased production Puc kept inventing more machines to support the manufacture of pins, safety pins, needles and buttons. The world renown Waldes trademark, Miss KIN, came about in 1912 when Waldes on his ocean trip to New York met Elisabeth Coyens who playfully put one fastener in her eye.František Kupka painted her portrait in oils andVojtěch Preissig from it designed the firm’s trademark. The other trade names used were Koh-i-noor and Otello.Waldes Koh-i-noor headquarters were located in
Prague suburbs ofVršovice . Soon the company grew to a large concern with branch factories inWarsaw ,Dresden ,Vienna ,Paris ,Barcelona andNew York .In 1939 Waldes was imprisoned by
Gestapo after theThird Reich occupation ofCzechoslovakia and kept in concentration camps Dachau andBuchenwald . In 1941 his family, who were sent to USA by Waldes before the war (he decided to remain inPrague as a Czech patriot) paid the Nazi authorities 8 million Czech crowns ransom. However, Waldes did not survive the journey to theUSA and died under suspicious circumstances on the ship which stopped atHavana ,Cuba in May 1941.Waldes was also a passionate art collector of contemporary Czech art. In 1918 in
Prague he founded Waldes Museum for his collection of buttons which had over 70 thousand items. The collection was transferred after theSecond World War to Uměleckoprůmyslové museum inPrague . Apart from buttons he collected works of Czech painters especiallyFrantišek Kupka ’s paintings. They became friends in 1919 and remained so until 1938. Waldes supported Kupka throughout his career by buying his canvases. Part of Jindřich Waldes’ collection held by the National Gallery inPrague had been returned to his descendants living in the United States.ee also
*
František Kupka Literature
* Patrik Šimon: Jindřich Waldes – sběratel umění, Patrik Šimon – Eminent, Praha 2001
* Jiří Waldes a kolektiv: Kupka – Waldes Malíř a jeho sběratel, Petr Meissner, Praha 1999External links
[http://www.museumkampa.cz/new/cz/index.php Museum Kampa, Prague: permanent exhibition of František Kupka's paintings]
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