Claire Beck Loos (4 November 1904 – 19 January 1942) was a Czechoslovakian photographer and writer. She was the third wife of early modernist Czechoslovak-Austrian architect Adolf Loos.

Biography

Claire Beck was born in Pilsen,

Kingdom of Bohemia The Kingdom of Bohemia ( cs, České království),; la, link=no, Regnum Bohemiae sometimes in English literature referred to as the Czech Kingdom, was a medieval and early modern monarchy in Central Europe, the predecessor of the modern Czec ...

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...

(now

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

) in 1904, one of three children of Olga (Feigl) Beck and Otto Beck. Claire became engaged to Adolf Loos (1870–1933) after he invited the Beck family to see a

Josephine Baker Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald; naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted Fran ...

performance 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 the spring of 1929. They were married in Vienna on 18 July of the same year over her parents' opposition to the much older Adolf. Because it was a mixed marriage (Claire was from a Jewish family, Adolf was not), the Jewish community refused to execute the marriage. They divorced in 1932. Loos's immediate and extended relations—the Beck, Hirsch, Turnowsky, and Kraus families—and her friends the Semlers were some of Adolf's first clients. They hired him to remodel apartment interiors in Pilsen and Vienna, and it was there that Adolf first began to open up the "interstitial spaces" between walls to create continuous rooms. In 1936, Loos published ''Adolf Loos Privat'', a literary work of "razor-sharp anecdotes" about her ex-husband's character, habits, and sayings that was illustrated with family photographs. Published by the Johannes-Presse in Vienna, the book was intended to raise funds for Adolf Loos's tomb, as he had died destitute three years earlier. Loos and her mother were forced to leave Pilsen and move to

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

at the beginning of World War II and were later deported to

Theresienstadt concentration camp Theresienstadt Ghetto was established by the Schutzstaffel, SS during World War II in the fortress town of Terezín, in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (German occupation of Czechoslovakia, German-occupied Czechoslovakia). Theresienstad ...

, Claire in 1941 and Olga in 1942. They were separately transported from there to

Riga Riga (; lv, Rīga , liv, Rīgõ) is the capital and largest city of Latvia and is home to 605,802 inhabitants which is a third of Latvia's population. The city lies on the Gulf of Riga at the mouth of the Daugava river where it meets the Ba ...

, German-occupied Latvia, where they were presumably shot or gassed on arrival in 1942.

Legacy

In 2012-13, some of Loos's photographs were included in the exhibition ''Vienna’s Shooting Girls: Jewish Women Photographers in Vienna''. In 2011, ''Adolf Loos Privat'' was published in its first English translation under the title ''Adolf Loos: A Private Portrait''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Loos, Claire Beck 1904 births 1942 deaths Austrian Jews Czech Jews Austrian women photographers Artists from Plzeň Theresienstadt Ghetto prisoners 20th-century Czech women artists 20th-century women photographers Writers from Plzeň Austrian Jews who died in the Holocaust Czech Jews who died in the Holocaust People who died in the Riga Ghetto 20th-century Austrian photographers