alexander waugh the house of wittgenstein

She was sexually frigid and consulted psychoanalysts about her problems, which were compounded when her schizoid husband lost all her money in the 1929 Wall Street crash. Gretl, the youngest daughter, fell prey to an American wastrel who married her for money. Hermine, the eldest child, was a repressed spinster who dabbled amateurishly in painting. The eight survivors were singularly unhappy, prone to cancers and all neurotic at the very least most of them undoubtedly crossed the border into psychosis. The multi-millionaire Karl Wittgenstein, an iron and steel magnate, fathered nine children, one of whom died in her first month. But the correct analogy for this ill-starred sept is surely the house of Atreus. One can understand why Alexander Waugh, himself a scion of a famous family, should have been interested in the Wittgenstein dynasty of Vienna. The Klinger Crouching.The Independent, Friday, September 26, 2008 In addition to Klimt, Wittgenstein bought work by other modern artists: sculptures by Rodin, Klinger, Carpeaux and Mestrovic and paintings by Hodler, Segantini and Puvis de Chavannes. His obituary in the Neue Freie Presse, the main Viennese newspaper, called him 'the most distinguished patron of that young generation of artists who in 1897. Most important of all, Wittgenstein financed the construction of the Vienna Secession building by Joseph Maria Olbrich in 1898. He also helped Klimt financially when the latter was forced to renounce the commission to decorate part of Vienna University's Great Hall and repay the advance on his three vast ceiling paintings.

He bought Klimt's painting The Golden Knight from the Vienna Secession in 1903, and in 1905 commissioned the artist to paint a portrait of his youngest daughter, Margarethe ('Gretl'), which was shown on an easel in the so-called Red Drawing Room in the Alleegasse. Encouraged by his oldest daughter Hermine ('Mining'), he became a supporter of Gustar Klimt and his circle. Having previously acquired the work of academic artists for his grandiose 19th-century 'palais' in Vienna's Alleegasse, together with antique furniture and tapestries, he now turned his attention to the avant-garde. For the remainder of his life he indulged his private interests, including building up his art collection. During that time Wittgenstein became one of the richest men in the Habsburg empire, so rich that he was able to retire from his industrial and business enterprises in his early fifties, transferring his fortune into property and foreign investments. The life of the steel magnate Karl Wittgenstein-born in 1847, he died in 1913-coincided almost exactly with the 68 years that Emperor Franz Josef ruled Austria-Hungary. The House of Wittgenstein: A Family at Warīloomsbury, 20 /Doubleday, $28.95

Alexander waugh the house of wittgenstein