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Berta Zuckerkandl (1864-1945) was a salonière and well-known journalist whose salon became the meeting point for the Viennese avant-garde. It was here that Gustav Klimt and other artists conceived their idea of a modernist artists’ association, the Viennese Secession. Gustav Mahler met his future wife Alma Schindler in Zuckerkandl’s drawing room, and the famous Wiener Werkstätte, a group of designers eager to simplify the overloaded artistic style prevalent in the late 19th century, received important commissions through Zuckerkandl’s intervention. Members of the Jung Wien [Young Vienna literary group, including Richard Beer-Hofmann, Arthur Schnitzler, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Stefan Zweig and others, regularly gathered in her home. |
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Born into a family of journalists — her father, Moritz Szeps was the editor-in-chief of the Neues Wiener Tageblatt, her brother, Julius, ran the Fremdenblatt, and Wiener Allgemeine Zeitung— Berta Zuckerkandl championed Austrian modernism, liberal politics and social reform as a journalist. A francophile like her father, Zuckerkandl translated works by eminent French authors such as Jean Anouillh, into German. In 1919, she became a co-founder of the Salzburg music festival.
With the help of Paul Clemenceau, her brother-in-law, she was able to flee to Paris in 1938, where she opened another salon that soon became the focal point of the emigre community, including Alma Mahler and Franz Werfel. Zuckerkandl survived the war years in North Africa with her son’s family and returned to Paris in 1945. |
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