Alma Schindler

1879-1964

•  Among her lovers were the artist Gustav Klimt, composer Arnold Schoenberg, writer Gerhart Hauptman, composer Alban Berg, singer Enrico Caruso, composer Alexander Zemlinksy, artist Oskar Kokoschka, and Professor Johannes Hollnsteiner.

• Alma Mahler was born in 1879 as the daughter of the Viennese landscape painter Emil Jakob Schindler.

• Alma grew up in a privileged environment; Gustav Klimt, Burgtheater director Max Burckhard and composer Alexander Zemlinsky (who was her composer tutor) are among the people who were in and out of her parents' house.

At the age of 22 Alma married the famous composer and conductor Gustav Mahler who was 20 years her senior.

• The price Alma paid for being married to the man who held the most powerful position in the Viennese music scene as the director of the Royal Opera was high; – she had to give up all her aspirations as a composer, as Mahler wished

her to be a simple housewife and mother.

• Alma bore him two children, Maria Anna (1902-1907), who died at the age of five and Anna Justina (1904-1988) who became a very famous sculptress.

• Gustav Mahler (1860-1911).

• After eight years of marriage Alma sought consolation for all these years of disappointment in the arms of Walter Gropius, who later had a major impact on modern architecture. – The two of them became utterly absorbed with each

other.

As a result Gustav Mahler had a short encounter with Sigmund Freud, the Meeting lasted only four hours and there are no documents which explain what was being discussed.

• About a year after Mahler's death Alma became involved with the young painter Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980).

• That affair lasted three years.

• The two of them lived and travelled together.

• Kokoschka was the man who came dangerously close to her inner being why she saw herself forced to break up the relationship.

• Until the end of her life she refused to see him again...

• Alma Mahler about 1913

• From 1910 to 1914 Kokoschka painted a remarkable series of portraits which expose the inner life of his sitters.

• Alma Mahler (1879 - 1964) was the muse of some of the great early-twentieth-century artists.

• Klimt fell in love with her but was ultimately spurned and the composer Gustav Mahler was her first husband. Kokoschka was her lover after Mahler's death.

• The artist met Alma Mahler in April 1912 and they immediately embarked upon a turbulent love affair. He painted several portraits of her and a celebrated oil, 'The Tempest', which depicts the couple together on a stormy sea.

Oskar Kokoschka (1886-1980)

• The Tempest, self-portrait with Alma Mahler by Oskar Kokoschka, oil on canvas, 1914; in the Kunstmuseum, Basel, Switzerland.

•"Bride of the Wind"(oil on canvass, 181x221cm)Kunstmuseum, Basel, Switzerland

Self-portrait of the Austrian artist expressing his unrequited love for Alma Mahler (widow of composer Gustav Mahler)

Self-Portrait with Life-Size Doll Made in the Likeness of Alma Mahler 1922

• With still inexhaustible energy, Klimt did not limit himself to affairs with lower class women; he tried—unsuccessfully—to seduce “the most beautiful girl in Vienna,” Alma Mahler-Werfel (see left).

• Four years after Mahler's death, Alma finally got married to Walter Gropius, by whom she had another daughter, Manon in 1916, who also died at a very young age.

• The once so passionate relationship wasn't meant to last and ended and they finally separated in 1918.

• The daughter of Alma Mahler and Walter Gropius.

• 1916 - 1935

Edvard Munch’s oil painting “Summer Night on the Beach” is to be restored to Marina

Mahler, granddaughter of Gustav and Alma Mahler. Alma Mahler was the original owner.

Ny times

9 de noviembre de 2006

• La pintura, llamada Paisaje marítimo con luna, se la regaló el arquitecto Walter Gropius a su esposa Alma por el nacimiento de una de sus hijas, en 1916.

• En 1937, tras casarse en terceras nupcias con Werfel, Alma Mahler dejó en depósito el cuadro a la Galería Austriaca, de titularidad estatal.

• En 1939, Alma y su tercer esposo, el escritor Franz Werfel huyeron de la persecución nazi hasta exiliarse en Estados Unidos.

• Desde allí, en 1953, Alma (ya viuda) intentó recuperar el cuadro que su padrastro había vendido en 1940 a la Galería Austriaca, por valor de 7.000 marcos.

• At the age of 50, Alma was married for the third time, this time to Jewish poet Franz Werfel, Author of the novels "The Song of Bernadette" and "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh" as well as successful theatre plays such as "Jacobowsky and the Colonel". While still married to Gropus Alma became pregnant by Werfel in 1918. The baby, named Martin, only lived ten months.

The burning of his works, followed the seizing of power by the Nazis forced Alma and Werfel into exile. In 1940 they settled in Hollywood. Franz Werfel died in 1945.

• La vida de Franz Werfel no tiene nada que envidiarle al guión de Casablanca.

• Fue amigo de Kafka, marido de Alma Mahler -¡uno de ellos!- y autor de éxito en vida –de poesía, novela, relato breve y teatro-.

• La publicación en 1933 de Los cuarenta días del Musa Dagh, centrada en la persecución de los armenios por parte del ejército turco durante la Primera Guerra Mundial, lo puso en el disparadero del Nacionalsocialismo, de cuya barbarie huyó en una odisea que le llevó a cruzar los Pirineos a pie junto con Alma y unos amigos para después embarcar en Lisboa rumbo a Estados Unidos, donde permaneció hasta su muerte en 1945

• After Werfels death, Alma travelled to Europe and in the early 1950 moved to New York, hoping to leave painful memories behind.

• Alma died on December 11th 1964 in New York. – She was buried in the Grinzinger Cemetery, Vienna,

Austria, where her daughter Manon was also buried.

• In her 85 Years Alma experienced two World Wars and changes in civilization as had never previously occurred.

• There is certainly no justification for the assertion upheld for generations, that Alma was merely a collector of geniuses.

• On the contrary she participated to a significant extent in the lives of those geniuses and became an indespensable part of them.

• How lost a man was without her! No one ever succeeded in conquering her. It had always been her who had been the conqueror.

• Alma saw herself as a member of an elite, as a noble and superior creation.

• There is no doubt, that she was exceptional; she became the most radiant focus of attention wherever she went. She was the centre of gravity.