"A valuable fine-grained portrait The English translation of her book is fluent and accurate, conveying well the tone of Claire Loos’ original (which, in turn, to some extent mimics Loos’ own writing style). Richly informative." Christopher Long, West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture"Claire Beck Loos, a gifted photographer and writer,  reveals much about her ex-husband’s mercurial persona in a series of conversationally-toned vignettes . Claire died tragically at 38, at the Riga concentration camp; her memoir thus becomes a haunting tribute not only to Loos's talents, but to her own.."Judy Pollan, Modernism MagazineAdolf LoosA Private Portrait is an unusual, literary biography featuring lively, often humorous, snapshots” of Viennese-Czechoslovak architect Adolf Loos. An intimate collection of vignettes reveal Loos’ personality, temperament and philosophy during the last years of his life (1929-1933) and the ways in which he helped shape Modern architecture. This translation, by Constance C. Pontasch and Nicholas Saunders, is the first English edition, the book having enjoyed several reprints in German.The author, Claire Beck Loos, was a photographer and Adolf Loos’ last wife. She was born in 1904 in Czechoslovakia; her family were Jewish industrialists and important early clients of Loos, commissioning several apartments in Pilsen and works by the architect’s friend Oskar Kokoschka. In addition to being a biography of her husband, Adolf LoosA Private Portrait also serves as a self-portrait of Claire, a vibrant young artist who died a tragic and untimely death at Riga, a Nazi concentration camp, in 1942. The book includes supplemental texts by Claire’s niece Janet Beck Wilson, biographical materials and previously unpublished artistic photographs by the author.

Adolf Loos A Private Portrait

Biographies & Memoirs

Loos, Claire Beck

Arts & Literature

DoppelHouse Press

<p>Written by Loos’ third wife, the photographer Claire Beck (1904–1942), these often humorous, short episodes reveal Loos’ temperament and philosophy during the last years of his life (1928–1933). His irreverent personality and attitudes about post-Imperial Viennese society, the role of the craftsman, and the organic beauty of raw materials are brought to light. Included in <i>The Private Adolf Loos</i> are Claire's photographs of Loos, collected in museums, as well as informal snapshots of the two of them showing the whimsy and theatricality of this relationship between two artistic personalities—one as infamous as he was well-regarded, and one, a youthful accomplice and budding photographer who would also become Loos' intermediary, secretary and proxy. With this bricolage of short tales and its dark conclusion at the brink of death’s door, Claire shows herself to be one of Loos’ great champions and memorialists, despite his shortcoming and debilitations. This is not a book about architecture, but rather a love story about the Modern revolution that provides a woman’s insight into one of its most radical personalities, set amid the fascinating cultural backdrop of 1920s and 1930s interwar Europe.</p>

The Private Adolf Loos: Portrait of an Eccentric Genius

Arts & Photography

History & Criticism

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Books by Loos, Claire Beck