Alma Mahler - Marriage To Gropius

Marriage To Gropius

After Mahler's death, Alma did not immediately resume contact with Gropius. Between 1912 and 1914 she had a tumultuous affair with the artist Oskar Kokoschka, who created many works inspired by his relationship with her, including, perhaps most famously, his painting The Bride of the Wind. Kokoschka's intense possessiveness wore on Alma, and the emotional vicissitudes of the relationship tired them both. With the coming of World War I, Kokoschka enlisted in the Austro-Hungarian Army, and Alma subsequently distanced herself from him and resumed contact with Gropius, who was also serving in combat at that time. She and Gropius married in 1915 during one of his military leaves. They had a daughter together, Manon Gropius (1916–1935), who died of polio at the age of 18. (Composer Alban Berg wrote his Violin Concerto in memory of her.)

She became pregnant and gave birth to a son, Martin Carl Johannes Gropius (1918–1919). Gropius at first believed that the child was his, but Alma's ongoing affair with Werfel was common knowledge in Vienna by this time, and she was soon exposed (see below).

Within a year, they agreed to a divorce. In the meantime, Martin, who had been born prematurely, developed hydrocephalus and died at the age of ten months. Alma's divorce from Gropius became final in 1920.