Alma Mahler

Alma Mahler, born on August thirty-first, eighteen seventy-nine, was a multifaceted Austrian composer, painter, biographer, and socialite. From a young age, she displayed remarkable musical talent, composing nearly fifty songs for voice and piano, with seventeen of these works surviving to this day. Her early mentorship under Max Burckhard at the age of fifteen helped shape her artistic journey.

In nineteen hundred and two, Alma married the renowned composer Gustav Mahler, a partnership that lasted until his death in nineteen eleven. Following this profound loss, she engaged in a passionate affair with the artist Oskar Kokoschka between nineteen eleven and nineteen fourteen. In nineteen fifteen, she married architect Walter Gropius, with whom she had a daughter named Manon Gropius. However, her marriage to Gropius was marked by an affair with writer Franz Werfel, which continued even after their separation.

As the political climate in Europe shifted, Alma and Werfel fled Austria in nineteen thirty-eight due to the dangers posed by the Nazi regime, particularly for the Jewish Werfel. They eventually settled in Los Angeles, where Alma's salon became a vibrant hub of artistic activity, echoing her earlier social circles in Vienna and later in New York.