In 1900 Vienna was one of the most exciting places to live in the world. Its glamorous high society was the envy of Europe, and it was the centre of an exploding arts movement that set the tone for the following century.
Tim Bonyhady's great-grandparents were leading patrons of the arts in fin de siecle Vienna: Gustav Klimt painted his great-grandmother's portrait, and the family knew many of the city's leading cultural figures. In Good Living Street he follows the lives of three generations of women in his family in an intimate account of fraught relationships, romance, and business highs and lows. They enjoyed a lifestyle of luxury and privilege - until everything changed for families of Jewish origin like his.
In 1938, his family fled Vienna for a small flat in a harbourside suburb of Sydney, taking with them the best private collection of art and design to escape the Nazis.
'.a book so rich in texture, so full of artistic and visual detail, that a whole lost central European world, and particularly its art, architecture and music, comes alive on the page.' - The Spectator
'This is a deeply affecting portrait of a family and the way that memory is held through objects and art. It is a remarkable book.' - Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes
Good Living Street : The Fortunes of My Viennese Family
Description
Table of Contents
Family Tree
Introduction
I. HERMINE
Klimt
God
Gas-Lights
Family
Gala
Pictures
Rooms
II. GRETL
Diaries
Tango
Love
War
Hoffmann
Death
Sex
Marriage
III. ANNELORE
Memory
Austro-Fascism
Anschluss
Visas
Subterfuge
Loss
Capture
IV. ANNE
1939
Aliens
Correspondence
Eric
Return
Dispersal
Restitution
Identity
Notes
Acknowledgements
Index
Author Description
Tim Bonyhady is a cultural historian and environmental lawyer at the Australian National University. His many books include the prize-winning The Colonial Earth.