Anna Mahler
Kopf Arnold Schönberg
1951
Bronze Height 29 cm. Mounted on marble base (6 x 16 x 16 cm) Including transport case. One of three known casts. - With fine dark brown patina. - In immaculate condition.
Anna Mahler was the daughter of the renowned composer Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) and his charismatic wife Alma Mahler-Werfel (1879-1964). In Rome, Anna Mahler first studied painting with Giorgio de Chirico and later sculpture with Fritz Wotruba. Shortly before her emigration to Los Angeles, she was awarded the "Grand Prix" at the World Fair in Paris in 1937. In Los Angeles, Anna Mahler drew portraits and cast the masks of famous deceased people, among them Alban Berg and Lion Feuchtwanger. “In February 1951, she formed the portrait of Schönberg; it is one of her most successful.” (Weidle/Seeber, op.cit., p.135). Arnold Schönberg, portrayed at the end of his illness, belonged to the outstanding, progressive Viennese composers, as did Gustav Mahler, between Romantic, fin-de-siècle and expressionism. The emphatic and expressive portrait manifests the elementary sentiments of the artist towards this friend. The vividly moulded surface intensifies the expression even more.
Provenance
Acquired directely from the artist; Private collection, Rhineland
Literature
Anna Mahler, Ihr Werk. Mit einer Einleitung von Ernst H. Gombrich, Stuttgart/Zürich 1975, p. 87, illus. 86; Franz Willnauer/Marina Mahler-Fistoulari (ed.), Anna Mahler Skulpturen (Die Bildhauerin Anna Mahler), Vaduz 1988, p. 89, no. 16, with full-page illus. p. 90 and 91, p. 116f.; Barbara Weidle/Ursula Seeber (ed.), Anna Mahler. Ich bin in mir selbst zu Hause, Bonn 2004, p.135, with illus. p.134
Exhibitions
Vienna 2005 (Schoenberg-Center), Der Maler Arnold Schönberg, no cat.