Anna Justine Mahler (15 June 1904 – 3 June 1988) was an
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
n
sculptor
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...
.
Early life
![Alma Mahler with Maria and Anna](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/14/Alma_Mahler_with_Maria_and_Anna.jpg)
Born in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
, Anna Mahler was the second child of the composer
Gustav Mahler and his wife
Alma Schindler
Alma Maria Mahler Gropius Werfel (born Alma Margaretha Maria Schindler; 31 August 1879 – 11 December 1964) was an Austrian composer, author, editor, and socialite. At 15, she was mentored by Max Burckhard. Musically active from her early year ...
. They nicknamed her 'Gucki' on account of her big blue eyes (''Gucken'' is German for 'peek' or 'peep'). Her childhood was spent in the shadow of her mother’s love affairs and famous salon. Anna also suffered the loss of her older sister Maria Mahler (1902–1907) who died of scarlet fever when Anna was three—and her father, who died when she was six. The aftermath of both tragedies coincided with her mother's love affair with the German architect
Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-American architect and founder of the Bauhaus School, who, along with Alvar Aalto, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, is widely regarded as one ...
and her stormy relationship with the Austrian Expressionist painter
Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright, and teacher best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expres ...
. Alma Mahler's second marriage to Gropius, however, provided some semblance of family life during Anna’s adolescence—as well as a young half-sister,
Manon Gropius
Alma Manon Anna Justina Carolina Gropius (5 October 1916 – 22 April 1935) was the daughter of the architect Walter Gropius and the composer and diarist Alma Mahler and the stepdaughter of the novelist and poet Franz Werfel. She is a ''Randfigur' ...
(1916–1935).
Anna was educated by tutors and also enjoyed the attention of her mother's friends, which included many of the important artistic figures in music, the visual arts, and literature. As the daughter of the legendary Gustav Mahler, Anna was expected to have a musical career. However, this never materialized. Rather than becoming a professional musician, Anna fell in love with one.
Personal life
At the age of 16, Anna fell in love with a rising young conductor, Rupert Koller. They were married on 2 November 1920. Their marriage ended within months.
Soon after, Anna moved to Berlin to study art. While there, she fell in love with
Ernst Krenek
Ernst Heinrich Krenek (, 23 August 1900 – 22 December 1991) was an Austrian, later American, composer of Czech origin. He explored atonality and other modern styles and wrote a number of books, including ''Music Here and Now'' (1939), a study ...
, the composer, who later was asked by Alma to produce a neat copy of two movements from the draft of Mahler's unfinished
Tenth Symphony. Anna married him on 15 January 1924, while she was still 19 years old. Like her first marriage, this second marriage failed within months. She left Krenek for good in November 1924. During this time, Krenek was completing his Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 29. The Australian violinist
Alma Moodie
Alma Mary Templeton Moodie (12 September 18987 March 1943) was an Australian violinist who established an excellent reputation in Germany in the 1920s and 1930s. She was regarded as the foremost female violinist during the inter-war years, and s ...
assisted Krenek with getting financial assistance from her Swiss patron
Werner Reinhart Werner Reinhart (19 March 1884 – 29 August 1951) was a Swiss merchant, philanthropist, amateur clarinetist, and patron of composers and writers, particularly Igor Stravinsky and Rainer Maria Rilke. Reinhart knew and corresponded with many artist ...
, at whose instigation Krenek and Mahler were living in
Zürich
, neighboring_municipalities = Adliswil, Dübendorf, Fällanden, Kilchberg, Maur, Oberengstringen, Opfikon, Regensdorf, Rümlang, Schlieren, Stallikon, Uitikon, Urdorf, Wallisellen, Zollikon
, twintowns = Kunming, San Francisco
Zürich ...
, and, in gratitude, Krenek dedicated the concerto to Moodie, who premiered it on 5 January 1925, in
Dessau. Krenek's divorce from Anna Mahler became final a few days after the premiere, which Krenek did not attend.
Next, Anna married the publisher
Paul Zsolnay on 2 December 1929, when she was 25. They had a daughter, Alma (5 November 1930 – 15 November 2010). The couple divorced in 1934, after five years.
Alma fled Nazi Austria after
anschluss
The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938.
The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...
in March 1938. By April 1939, she was living in
Hampstead in
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
and was advertising in the newspaper for pupils.
On 3 March 1943, she married the conductor
Anatole Fistoulari
Anatole Fistoulari (20 August 1907 – 21 August 1995) was a Ukrainian conductor, who became a British citizen.Obituary – Anatole Fistoulari. ''Opera'', October 1995, Vol.46 No.10, p1172. A child prodigy, he later conducted around Europe and Ame ...
with whom she had another daughter, Marina (born 1 August 1943). After the War, she travelled to
California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
without Fistoulari, to whom she was still married. She lived there for some years. Anna appeared on "
You Bet Your Life
''You Bet Your Life'' is an American comedy quiz series that has aired on both radio and television. The original and best-known version was hosted by Groucho Marx of the Marx Brothers, with announcer and assistant George Fenneman. The show deb ...
", both the 2 January 1952 radio show, and the 3 January 1952 TV show. Her marriage to Fistoulari was dissolved around 1956.
Around 1970, she married her fifth husband,
Albrecht Joseph (1901–1991), a
Hollywood film editor and writer of screenplays. Mahler once said that she had found true love with her last husband but had left him at the age of seventy-five in order that they might both progress, since they spent too much time looking after each other.
After her mother died in 1964, Anna, now financially independent, returned to London for a while before finally deciding to live in
Spoleto
Spoleto (, also , , ; la, Spoletum) is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east-central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is S. of Trevi, N. of Terni, SE of Perugia; SE of Florence; and N of Rome.
History
Spolet ...
in
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
in 1969. In 1988, she died in Hampstead, while visiting her daughter Marina there. She is buried at
Highgate Cemetery
Highgate Cemetery is a place of burial in north London, England. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East Cemeteries. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for some of the people buried there as ...
.
Artistic career
![Grave of Anna Mahler Austrian sculpture, in Highgate East Cemetery in London 2016](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Grave_of_Anna_Mahler_Austrian_sculpture%2C_in_Highgate_East_Cemetery_in_London_2016.jpg)
Anna Mahler's exposure to the visual arts began early when she would visit
Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright, and teacher best known for his intense expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the Viennese Expres ...
's studio. She was also a model for her mother-in-law, the painter
Broncia Koller-Pinell
Broncia Koller-Pinell (25 February 1863 – 26 April 1934) was an Austrian Expressionist painter who specialized in portraits and still-lifes.
Life
She was born as Bronisława Pineles to a Jewish family in Sanok in what is now Poland. Her fath ...
. After her divorce, Anna studied art and painting on and off in Berlin, Rome, and Paris throughout the 1920s. At the age of twenty-six, she discovered that sculpture was the medium in which she could best express her creativity. Having taken lessons in sculpting in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
in 1930 from
Fritz Wotruba
Fritz Wotruba (23 April 1907, Vienna, Austria – 28 August 1975, Vienna) was an Austrian sculptor of Czecho- Hungarian descent. He was considered one of the most notable sculptors of the 20th century in Austria. In his work, he increasingly di ...
, she became an established sculptor there, and was awarded the Grand Prix in Paris in 1937.
As well as sculpting successfully in stone, Anna Mahler produced bronze heads of many of the musical giants of the 20th century including
Arnold Schönberg
Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...
,
Alban Berg,
Artur Schnabel
Artur Schnabel (17 April 1882 – 15 August 1951) was an Austrian-American classical pianist, composer and pedagogue. Schnabel was known for his intellectual seriousness as a musician, avoiding pure technical bravura. Among the 20th centur ...
,
Otto Klemperer
Otto Nossan Klemperer (14 May 18856 July 1973) was a 20th-century conductor and composer, originally based in Germany, and then the US, Hungary and finally Britain. His early career was in opera houses, but he was later better known as a concer ...
,
Bruno Walter
Bruno Walter (born Bruno Schlesinger, September 15, 1876February 17, 1962) was a German-born conductor, pianist and composer. Born in Berlin, he escaped Nazi Germany in 1933, was naturalised as a French citizen in 1938, and settled in the U ...
,
Rudolf Serkin
Rudolf Serkin (28 March 1903 – 8 May 1991) was a Bohemian-born Austrian-American pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest Beethoven interpreters of the 20th century.
Early life, childhood debut, and education
Serkin was born in ...
and
Eileen Joyce
Eileen Alannah Joyce CMG (died 25 March 1991) was an Australian pianist whose career spanned more than 30 years. She lived in England in her adult years.
Her recordings made her popular in the 1930s and 1940s, particularly during World War I ...
.
[Richard Davis, ''Eileen Joyce: A Portrait''.]
References
Footnotes
Sources
* ''Anna Mahler. Ich bin in mir selbst zu Hause''. Ed. by Barbara Weidle and Ursula Seeber (Weidle Verlag, Bonn, 2004)
Anna Mahler tribute website* Obituary, ''
The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...
'', 6 June 1988
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mahler, Anna
1904 births
1988 deaths
Artists from Vienna
Austrian expatriates in the United States
Austrian expatriates in Italy
Austrian Jews
20th-century Austrian sculptors
Austrian women sculptors
Burials at Highgate Cemetery
Anna
Anna may refer to:
People Surname and given name
* Anna (name)
Mononym
* Anna the Prophetess, in the Gospel of Luke
* Anna (wife of Artabasdos) (fl. 715–773)
* Anna (daughter of Boris I) (9th–10th century)
* Anna (Anisia) (fl. 1218 to 12 ...
Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom
Jewish sculptors
20th-century Austrian composers
20th-century Austrian women artists
20th-century Austrian musicians