“Liebhaber ohne Adresse – Elias Canetti and Marie-Louise von Motesiczky”

Two great artists meet in exile: the painter Marie-Louise von Motesiczky and the writer Elias Canetti. They support each other in their struggle to create good work and fall in love. Their tempestuous relationship, which spans over fifty years, is now vividly brought to life through their letters, published by Hanser Verlag in 2011. Ines Schlenker and Kristian Wachinger who edited the correspondence, and Sean Rainbird, Director of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart and a trustee of the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust, will give an introduction to the correspondents. The actress Lisa Wildmann will read from the letters.

• For more information see www.literaturhaus-stuttgart.de/event/2274-1-liebhaber-ohne-adresse-elias-canetti-und-marie-louise-von-motesiczky/.

• Click here to view and buy the  Liebhaber ohne Adresse Briefwechsel (Lovers without an Address), Briefwechsel 1942-1992 book

From its foundation in 1992, the Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust has fostered research into the life and work of this remarkable woman artist who was born in Vienna, going into enforced exile with her mother in 1938, first in the Netherlands, then in Britain in 1939. To mark the occasion of the publication of the catalogue raisonné of her paintings, the Trust and the Research Forum, Courtauld Institute of Art organised a seminar on 27 May 2011. The proceedings were chaired by Shulamith Behr and included an introduction by Sean Rainbird (Director, Staatsgalerie Stuttgart) and a keynote lecture by Sander L. Gilman (Distinguished Professor of the Liberal Arts and Sciences, Emory University), author of over seventy books, his recent edited volume, Race and Contemporary Medicine: Biological Facts and Fictions (Routledge), appearing in 2008.  There were papers by art historians Ines Schlenker (author of the Catalogue Raisonné of the works of Marie-Louise von Motesiczky, Hudson Hills, NY, 2009) and Jill Lloyd, well-known exponent of German Expressionism and author of The Undiscovered Expressionist. A Life of Marie-Louise von Motesiczky (Yale University Press, 2007). These explored Motesiczky’s relationship to the artistic and literary exile milieu in London, her quest for self- expression, as well as conveying the state of research in progress. The ceramicist Edmund de Waal, related to the Motesiczky family and author of the Costa Biography Award-winning book The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance (Chatto-Windus, 2010), provided concluding remarks.

The event was made possible by the generous support of The Marie-Louise von Motesiczky Charitable Trust

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