So glad to have found your discussion. I have begun researching the costume and fashion designer Ladislas Czettel (1895–1949) in New York archives and have so many questions. My interest came about because when I emptied my great-aunt's apartment after she died in 1981, I discovered 14 original opera costume designs signed Czettel in a brown paper bag in her storeroom. At the time I tried to sell them at Sotheby's, but the reserve price was not met and I took them back. Then, just this summer, being semi-retired, I decided to try to sell them again. However, when I took them out, this time I loved them and determined to find out who Czettel was. So far the search is beyond fascinating; nevertheless, there seems to be no biography of him. I would like to pose questions if this thread is still active. One of the many mysteries is where he is buried. I contacted both the funeral home that handled his body, Frank E. Campbell, and Saint Ignatius Loyola Church on Park Ave (of all places!), where he had a requiem mass. Both went back to their 1949 records and neither noted a burial place. The Archdiocese gave a special dispensation to have the requiem mass but did not say why. (Not a member of the parish, not a Catholic, a suicide?) One important question is how observant was Czettel's family when he was growing up, did he get bar mitzvahed, did he perhaps convert from Judaism?
