Alexander Zemlinsky

Alexander Zemlinsky was born on October 14, 1871 to Clara and Adolf von Zemlinsky. His family was poor, and took a lodger into their home when Alexander was only four years old. This lodger was an amateur pianist, and had moved to Vienna so that he could study music. Zemlinsky was allowed to sit in on piano lessons, and it was soon discovered that he learned very quickly. Soon he was given his own lessons, and was admitted into the Vienna Music Conservatory in 1884. He graduated in 1887 to the senior school, where he continued his studies. In 1892, he tried to join the military, but was found unfit for military service probably because of his height and weight. Zemlinsky was often referred to as ugly and skinny. He was only 5'2" with a large pointy nose and a receding chin.

Zemlinsky met Alma Schindler in 1900 when Alma became his student. He worked with her on the composition of her Lieder. Alma feared pregnancy and so they never consummated their relationship. Alma writes in her diary of her attraction to Zemlinsky, and notes: "He doesn't trust in his masculine appeal...--I don't find him ugly. I love his appearance. He's so small...when we walk together, he reaches up to my shoulder. [But then] all famous men were small--almost all. I believe he loves me truly, more truly than I love him, for I haven't yet lost my head" (397-98).

Zemlinsky and Alma never marry. Alma's stepfather Carl Moll does not approve because Zemlinsky was raised Jewish. Also, Zemlinsky's poverty and ugliness are two additional reasons why her family does not approve. Eventually Alma breaks off the relationship with him and soon after marries Gustav Mahler.

Click below for a few photos of Zemlinsky:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/39974385@N00/sets/72157594448564470/

They following is a link to the non-scholarly source with some additional information of Zemlinsky in relationship with Alma Schindler:
http://www.alma-mahler.at/engl/almas_life/zemlinsky.html

Some of the information above came from the following sources:
Beaumont, Antony. Zemlinsky. Ithaca, New York: Cornell U. Press, 2000.
---, Trans. Alma Mahler-Werfel Diaries 1898-1902. London: Faber and Faber, 1998.

Walter Gropius

Walter Gropius, born in Berlin on May 18, 1883, was a German architect and educator. He founded the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany in 1919 and was director from 1919-1928. He designed modern buildings of glass and steel, with clean lines and no ornamentation. He designed the Fagus Factory with Adolf Meyer in 1911, the Bauhaus in 1925, and his own Massachusetts home in 1937, which was constructed in 1938.

Gropius married Alma Mahler in 1915 and they had a daughter, Manon Gropius in 1916. Alma and Gropius divorced in 1920. Gropius fled to England in 1934, and then to the United States. From 1938-1952 he was the Chairman of the Department of Architecture at Harvard University. Walter Gropius died on July 5, 1969.

Click below to see some photos and his architecture:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/74644976@N00/sets/72157594427431755/

Click on this link to see additional photos of Walter Gropius:
http://www.library.upenn.edu/collections/rbm/photos/mahler/waltergropius.html

Click on this link for a little more information about Walter Gropius. Again, keep in mind that this is not a scholarly source:
http://www.alma-mahler.at/engl/almas_life/gropius.html

Alma Mahler pictures

Click on the link below to some pictures of Alma Mahler and her daughters from 1903-1920. There are pictures with her daughters, too. These pictures also include some photos of Alma with Franz Werfel, who she married in 1929.

http://www.library.upenn.edu/collections/rbm/photos/mahler/almamahler2.html

Alma and Kokoschka: Their First Meeting

Kokoschka first met Alma Mahler on April 12, 1912. The accounts of their first meeting differ quite a bit, which I thought was interesting.

There is an account of their meeting by Kokoschka as told to French photographer Brassai in 1930 or 1931:
"Alma was the wife of Gustav Mahler...He had been dead for a year when I met her, which was in 1912, at Carl Moll's, a painter who often invited his friends to dinners in his mansion, dinner followed by chamber-music concerts. It was on one of those occasions that I first came face to face with Alma. She had just returned from abroad. How beautiful she was, and how seductive she looked beneath her mourning veil! She enchanted me! And I had the impression that she was not indifferent to me, either. In fact after dinner, she took me by the arm and drew me into an adjoining room, where she sat down and played the Liebestod on the piano for me" (7).

Alma Mahler also recorded her first encounter with Kokoschka in her autobiography:
"He had brought some rough paper with him and wanted to draw. But after a little while I said I couldn't be stared at like that and asked him if I could play the piano meanwhile. He began to draw, coughing intermittently and then trying to hide his handkerchief because it had specks of blood on it. We barely spoke, but even then he could not draw. We stood up-and he suddenly embraced me wildly. This kind of embrace was alien to me...I did not respond in the least and it was precisely this that seemed to affect him" (7-8).

This information was taken from:
Weidinger, Alfred. Kokoschka and Alma Mahler. Munich: Prestel, 1996.

Hulda, Dr. Posse and the doll

Kokoschka noted in his autobiography that Hulda's imagination attracted his attention. Dr. Posse would lend Hulda to OK for a few hours to assist when OK would receive visitors. And as we know from the script, Hulda (called Reserl) would wear a french maid's outfit only when she worked for OK.

Kokoschka notes in his autobiography that he "had an aversion to men" (116), and Reserl would often send people away, saying: "the Captain is in bed, thinking" (116).

Dr. Posse was agreeable to the idea of the doll coming to live in his home. Reserl helped with the fantasy game with the doll. Reserl and OK called her the Silent Woman, and Reserl was commissioned to spread rumors about the doll. For instance, she worked at telling people that OK had rented a box at the opera to show her off.

Kokoschka writes about an event in which he held a big, formal party for the doll. He even had musicians come and play for the event. Reserl participated in parading the doll around the party. Everyone at the party was drunk and by the end of the night, the doll ended up headless and drenched in red wine. The police arrived the next day because of a report that a "bloody," headless body was lying in the front yard. Dr. Posse spoke to the police and helped to smooth everything over. Kokoschka was ultimately only charged with causing a public nuisance (118). OK notes at the end of this chapter that in those days in Dresden, he could get away with anything (118).

All of this information was taken from:
Kokoschka, Oskar. My Life. Trans. David Britt. New York: Macmillan, 1974.

Kokoschka's Landscapes

Kokoschka traveled extensively from 1923-29, and painted primarily landscapes during this time. Kokoschka traveled through Europe, to North Africa, Palestine, Istanbul and Jerusalem.

Click below to see a few of Kokoschka's landscapes from 1928-30:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/74644976@N00/sets/72157594404078436/

Hermine Moos and the doll

Kokoschka was in collaboration with Hermine Moos, an avant-garde dollmaker, when he commissioned her to create the Alma doll. He and Hermine wrote letters to communicate the details of the creation of the doll. Some of these letters have been published. Once the doll was created, he hired servants to spread rumors about the doll. Hulda was one of the servants who assisted Kokoschka with those rumors.

In an article by Bonnie Roos entitled "The Women and the Doll Who Conceived the Artist", Roos writes of Moos' role as madam. "In this sense, Kokoschka reduces Moos's artistic talent to her feminine procreative powers, which are paid for: she not only sells a doll she has sexed into a 'woman,' but sells herself--an intricate linking of motherly creation and the female artist with 'public' commerce and prostitution" (297).

Despite Kokoschka's request for a skin that feels like natural skin, Moos' creation had a skin of feathers. Kokoscka was disappointed with this result. He writes about his disappointment in a letter to Frauline Moos:

"The outer shell is a polar-bear pelt, suitable for a shaggy imitation bedside rug rather than the soft and pliable skin of a woman. [...] The result is that I cannot
even dress the doll, which you knew was my intention, let alone array her in
delicate and precious robes. Even attempting to pull on one stocking would be like
asking a French dancing-master to waltz with a polar bear" (299).

Although Moos is a skilled doll-maker, her creation was a disappointment to Kokoschka. There is speculation from author Bonnie Roos that the demands made of her were purposely ignored when she created the doll, in order to thwart OK's creation.

Click below to see pictures of the doll:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/74644976@N00/sets/72157594403980516/

Click on this link for addtional information about the doll. Again, with this link, read lightly. This information does not come from a scholarly source and may not be 100% accurate.
http://www.alma-mahler.at/engl/almas_life/puppet.html

More Adolf Loos

Check out several more pictures of Adolf Loos, and pictures with some of his past lovers. Elsie Altmann, his second wife, was a dancer and operetta star to whom he was married for seven years. Bessie Bruce, who is found with Loos in many of these photos, was Loos' mistress. Bessie was also a cabaret dancer.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/74644976@N00/sets/72157594402265027/

These photos were found in Rukschcio, Burkhardt and Schachel, Roland. Adolf Loos: Leben und Werk, 1982.