The Brothers Josephu

The Brothers Josephu
Young Josef at work...circa 1917

Thursday, November 19, 2015

Exciting Author for the 'Forward'

I'm very pleased that Anne Marie O'Connor has agreed to write the forward for Brothers in Stone.

Anne-Marie is a veteran foreign correspondent and culture writer who has covered everything from post-Soviet Cuba to American artists and intellectuals. O’Connor attended Vassar and the San Francisco Art Institute and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, where she and fellow students co-created an award-winning documentary on the repression of mural artists after the 1973 military coup in Chile. She covered the wars in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala as a Reuters bureau chief in Central America; the Shining Path guerrillas in Peru, coups in Haiti and U.S. interventions in Haiti and Panama; and covered Cuba and Haiti for a newspaper chain. At the Los Angeles Times she chronicled the violence of Mexico’s Arellano-Felix drug cartel, U.S. political convention; and profiled such figures as Nelson Mandela, George Soros, Joan Didion, John McCain, and Maya Lin.

Her story on Maria Altmann’s effort to recover the family Klimt collection appeared in the Los Angeles Times Magazine in 2001. She has written for Esquire, The Nation, and The Christian Science Monitor. She currently contributes to The Washington Post from Jerusalem.
 
 
Most recently Ms. O'Connor has written the definitive book on Gustav Klimt's masterpiece, Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer, otherwise known as "Woman in Gold." Her book Lady in Gold is superb and highly recommended. Ms. O'Connor is a leading expert on Gustav Klimt, and had introduced me to his grandson, Gustav Zimmerman, on my last trip to Vienna.
 
Above: Gustav Zimmerman, me, my cousin George
and dear friend Herbert Fischer in Vienna, Dec 2014.
 
It'll be quite some time before my draft is done, and I'm very honored she has accepted to write the forward. Thanks, Anne Marie! 

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Ongoing Research and Results

The research on Josephu is an ongoing process, sometimes very slow and sometimes surprisingly fast. Sunday night I sent an email to three facilities in Vienna seeking a photo of one of Josef's teachers, Josef Muellner. The next morning I had three replies and the photo, which they have given me permission to use in the book credited as courtesy of them.

Then, in a quick search today, I found another statue I did now know about, titled "Salome" (1920) probably cast by Argentor, the company that reproduced many of Josef's work.
 
Then another piece of interesting data showed up. We know my mother went to school with Hedy Lamarr in Vienna (before she was Hedy Lamarr). A wooden statue by Josef (St. Anthony) stands in the beautiful Karlskirche (St. Charles' Church) located in Karlsplatz just off the Ringstrasse. Hedy married Friedrich Mandl August 10, 1933, in Karlskirche. My great-grandfather, Wenzel Josephu, was born on August 10th....and so was I. Fun stuff.
 
Meanwhile, I am looking forward to seeing some documents from the archives of the Fire Brigade Museum of Am Hof, Vienna. They reached out to me that they have several documents about my grandfather. He sculpted a large bronze (St. Florian, patron saint of firemen) and has 8 pieces in their museum.