Alma Mahler
Austrian composer, art collector, author, editor, and socialite (1879-1964)
Alma Mahler-Werfel (born Alma Margaretha Maria Schindler; 31 August 1879 – 11 December 1964) was an Austrian composer, author, editor, and socialite. Musically active from her early years, she became a fixture of Vienna's fin de siècle cultural scene, and struck up friendships and relationships with a number of notable artists and composers.
Alma was trained in composition by Max Burckhard, but ceased her compositional activity in 1902, when she married composer Gustav Mahler, who died in 1911. Between 1911 and 1914 she had a passionate affair with Oskar Kokoschka. In 1915, Alma married Walter Gropius, and they had a daughter, Manon Gropius. Throughout her marriage to Gropius, Alma engaged in an affair with Franz Werfel. Following her separation from Gropius, Alma and Werfel eventually married.
In 1938, after Nazi Germany annexed Austria, Werfel and Alma fled to France, as it was unsafe for the Jewish Werfel in Austria. In 1940, they escaped via Spain and Portugal to the US. Eventually, the couple settled in Los Angeles. In later years, her salon became part of the artistic scene (as before in Vienna), first in Los Angeles, then in New York.
The public source identifies “Alma Mahler” as austrian composer, art collector, author, editor, and socialite (1879-1964). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Alma, Mahler and Austrian.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q156898. VIAF identifies the subject as 34578412. The Library of Congress control number is n50002491. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1879, 1964, 1902 and 1911.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alma Mahler” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.