‘You Are Art to Me’
The correspondence Alma Mahler – Walter Gropius 1910–1914
A gripping journey through time, a great love affair, a cultural history in letters.
Arranged by Adriana Kapsreiter and Fabian Kurze
Edited by Annemarie Jaeggi and Jörg Rothkamm
Published on 23 October 2023, the book is the culmination of a multi-year research project.
In the summer of 1910, Alma Mahler and Walter Gropius meet at a health spa. It is the beginning of a liaison that starts as a passionate affair and develops into a complex relationship full of highs and lows. In approximately four hundred letters, their correspondence tells the story of a remarkable young woman and a now famous architect. Until the death of her husband Gustav in May 1911, Alma Mahler was torn between her involvement with his music, her own activities as a composer and her desire for freedom. At the time, Walter Gropius had little more than his idealistic visions. The book makes the complete correspondence between 1910 and 1914 accessible for the first time, offering entirely new insights into the dramatic life and work of three central protagonists of modernity.
The book is published in German by Residenz Verlag.