Oskar Kokoschka, Hermine Moos and the Alma Mahler doll – The Public Domain Review

Oskar learned to love the monster – or at least live with it, and hired a maid named Hulda (whom he insisted on calling Russerl) to wait on his hand and webbed foot. He launched their relationship hard at prominent cafes, operas and parties organized in their honor. He represented the doll relentlessly, as he had once captured Alma’s attitude by creating pen-and-ink drawings and oil paintings. Woman in blue (1919), Self-portrait with doll (ca. 1920–21), and At the Donkey (1922) all date from this period. In his old age he remembered the doll differently, replace the initial disappointment he had expressed in letters to Moos with a radiant, almost beatific autobiographical account. “In a state of feverish anticipation, like Orpheus recalling Eurydice from the underworld, I freed the image of Alma Mahler from its wrappings. When I lifted it into the light of day, the image of her I had retained in my memory came to life. The light I saw in that moment was without precedent.”