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Oskar Kokoschka, Hermine Moos, and the Alma Mahler Doll

Photographs of the life-size doll that Kokoschka had made to resemble his ex-lover Alma Mahler.

She quickly returned to Vienna, to an empty flat, only to be confronted by the face of her dead husband, whose death mask had been installed in their living room without her consent — the latest paroxysm of Oskar’s obsession. “Please make it possible that my sense of touch will be able to take pleasure in those parts where the layers of fat and muscle suddenly give way to a sinuous covering of skin.” He wrote Moos a dozen letters, sent her a life-size painting of Alma, and asked to sample textiles and prototypes of limbs. “Although I feel ashamed I must still write this, but it remains our secret (and you are my confidante): the parties honteuses must be made perfect and luxuriant and covered with hair, otherwise it is not to be a woman but a monster.” Despite swearing Moos to secrecy, he likely had an eye toward posterity while penning these letters: they were published six years later in a volume titled Der Fetische.

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