Anna Justine Mahler (15 June 1904 – 3 June 1988) was an

Austria Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...

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

Born in

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

, Anna Mahler was the second child of the composer

Gustav Mahler Gustav Mahler (; 7 July 1860 – 18 May 1911) was an Austro-Bohemian Romantic music, Romantic composer, and one of the leading conductors of his generation. As a composer he acted as a bridge between the 19th-century Austro-German tradition and ...

and his wife

Alma Schindler Alma Mahler-Werfel (born Alma Margaretha Maria Schindler; 31 August 1879 – 11 December 1964) was an Austrian composer, author, editor, and socialite. Musically active from her early years, she was the composer of nearly fifty songs for voice ...

. They nicknamed her 'Gucki' on account of her big blue eyes (''gucken'' is German for 'to look' or 'to peep'). Her childhood was spent in the shadow of her mother’s love affairs and famous salon. Anna also suffered the loss of her elder 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-born American architect and founder of the Bauhaus, Bauhaus School, who is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture. He was a founder of ...

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 Expre ...

. 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 Austrian-born daughter of the German architect Walter Gropius and the Austrian composer and diarist Alma Mahler and the stepdaughter of the novelist and poet Fran ...

(1916–1935). Anna was educated by tutors and also enjoyed the attention of her mother's friends, including many of the important artistic figures in music, the visual arts and literature. As the daughter of the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler, Anna was expected to have a musical career, but this never materialised.

Artistic career

Anna Mahler's exposure to the visual arts began at an early age, during visits to

's studio. She was also a model for her mother-in-law, the painter Broncia Koller-Pinell. 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

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 Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian and American composer, music theorist, teacher and writer. He was among the first Modernism (music), modernists who transformed the practice of harmony in 20th-centu ...

Alban Berg Alban Maria Johannes Berg ( ; ; 9 February 1885 – 24 December 1935) was an Austrian composer of the Second Viennese School. His compositional style combined Romantic lyricism with the twelve-tone technique. Although he left a relatively sma ...

Artur Schnabel Artur Schnabel (17 April 1882 – 15 August 1951) was an Austrian-born classical pianist, composer and Pedagogy, pedagogue. Schnabel was known for his intellectual seriousness as a musician, avoiding pure technical bravura. Among the 20th ...

Otto Klemperer Otto Nossan Klemperer (; 14 May 18856 July 1973) was a German conductor and composer, originally based in Germany, and then the United States, Hungary and finally, Great Britain. He began his career as an opera conductor, but he was later bet ...

Bruno Walter Bruno Walter (born Bruno Schlesinger, September 15, 1876February 17, 1962) was a Germany, German-born Conducting, conductor, pianist, and composer. Born in Berlin, he escaped Nazi Germany in 1933, was naturalised as a French people, French cit ...

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 (1908–1991) 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 II. At h ...

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. He explored atonality and other modern styles and wrote a number of books, including ''Music Here and Now'' (1939), a study of Johannes Ock ...

, 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 only 19 years old. Like her first marriage, this second marriage failed within months. She left Krenek permanently 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 being among the foremost female violinists during the inter-war ...

assisted Krenek in obtaining 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 artis ...

, at whose instigation Krenek and Mahler were living in

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

, and, in gratitude, Krenek dedicated the concerto to Moodie, who premiered it on 5 January 1925, in

Dessau Dessau is a district of the independent city of Dessau-Roßlau in Saxony-Anhalt at the confluence of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the ''States of Germany, Bundesland'' (Federal State) of Saxony-Anhalt. Until 1 July 2007, it was an independent ...

. Krenek's divorce from Anna Mahler was finalised a few days after the premiere, which Krenek did not attend.Kay Dreyfus, ''Alma Moodie and the Landscape of Giftedness'' Anna subsequently married 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. Anna fled Nazi Austria after the

Anschluss The (, or , ), also known as the (, ), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into Nazi Germany on 12 March 1938. The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a "German Question, Greater Germany") arose after t ...

in March 1938. By April 1939, she was living in

Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, England, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, located mainly in the London Borough of Camden, with a small part in the London Borough of Barnet. It borders Highgate and Golders Green to the north, Belsiz ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

and was advertising in the newspaper for pupils. On 3 March 1943, she married conductor

Anatole Fistoulari Anatole Fistoulari (20 August 1907 – 21 August 1995) was one of the great British conductors of the 20th century.Obituary – Anatole Fistoulari. ''Opera'', October 1995, Vol.46 No.10, p1172. A child prodigy, he later conducted around Europe and ...

with whom she had another daughter, Marina (born 1 August 1943). After the War, she travelled to

California California () is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States that lies on the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. It borders Oregon to the north, Nevada and Arizona to the east, and shares Mexico–United States border, an ...

, United States, 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 radioAlbrecht Joseph (1901–1991), a

Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood ...

film editor and writer of screenplays, round about 1970. 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 , , ; ) is an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east-central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines. It is south of Trevi, north of Terni, southeast of Perugia; southeast of Florence; and north of Rome. H ...

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

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, designed by architect Stephen Geary. There are approximately 170,000 people buried in around 53,000 graves across the West and East sides. Highgate Cemetery is notable both for so ...

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 Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'', 6 June 1988 {{DEFAULTSORT:Mahler, Anna 1904 births 1988 deaths Sculptors 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 Gustav Mahler Jewish emigrants from Nazi Germany to the United Kingdom Jewish Austrian sculptors 20th-century Austrian composers 20th-century Austrian women artists 20th-century Austrian musicians