Claire Beck Loos

Claire Beck Loos
Claire Beck Loos self portrait, late 1920's Courtesy: Study and Dokumentation Centrum, Villa Müller, Prague, Czech Republic
Born	1904 Pilsen, Czechoslovakia
Died	1942 Riga, Latvia
Occupation	writer, photographer
Notable work(s)	Adolf Loos Privat

Claire Beck Loos was a photographer and writer, born in 1904 in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia. She was the third wife of early modern Czechoslovak-Viennese architect Adolf Loos.

Claire Beck’s immediate and extended relations - the Beck, Hirsch, Turnowsky and Kraus families - and friends the Semmlers, were some of Loos’ first clients. They hired him to remodel apartment interiors in Pilsen and Vienna, and it was there that Loos first began to open up the "interstitial spaces" between walls to create continuous rooms.^[1] These projects, among others, are highlighted in the traveling exhibition "Learning to Dwell: Adolf Loos in the Czech Lands" sponsored by the City of Prague Museum, which opened in Prague in 2008 and has travelled to Brno, Czech Republic; Torino, Italy; and the Royal Institute of British Architects in London.

Claire and Loos were engaged after Loos invited the Beck family to see a Josephine Baker performance in Vienna in the spring of 1929.^[2] They had a short and rushed engagement, due to her parents’ opposition. They were married in Vienna on July 18, 1929. She was thirty-five years younger than he was. Because it was a mixed marriage, the Jewish community refused to execute the marriage. Loos and Claire were divorced on April 30, 1932.^[3]

Claire Beck Loos wrote Adolf Loos Privat, a literary work of snapshot-like vignettes about Loos’ character, habits and sayings, which was published by the Johannes-Presse in Vienna in 1936. The book was intended to raise funds for Adolf Loos’ tomb, as he died destitute on August 23, 1933.^[4]

Following his death in 1933, Loos’ body was later moved to Vienna’s Zentralfriedhof to rest among the great artists and musicians of the city – including Arnold Schoenberg, Peter Altenberg, and Karl Kraus, all some of Loos’ closest friends and associates.^[5]

Claire Beck Loos and her mother Olga Feigl Beck moved to Prague at the beginning of World War II, and were later deported to Theresienstadt concentration camp in 1941. They died in 1942 at the Nazi concentration camp at Riga, Latvia.^[6]

References

1. ^ Murray, Irena (2011). lecture. Royal Institute of British Architects. 
2. ^ Loos, Claire Beck (1985). Adolf Loos Privat. Vienna: Bohlau. 
3. ^ Rukschcio & Schachel (1982). Adolf Loos-Leben Und Werk. Salzburg: Residenz. 
4. ^ Loos, Claire Beck (2011). Adolf Loos – A Private Portrait. Los Angeles, CA: DoppelHouse Press. 
5. ^ Loos, Claire Beck (2011). Adolf Loos – A Private Portrait. Los Angeles, CA: DoppelHouse Press. 
6. ^ Terezin Memorial Book. Prague: Melantrich. 1985. 

Persondata
Name	Loos, Claire Beck
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1904
Place of birth	Pilsen, Czechoslovakia
Date of death	1942
Place of death	Riga, Latvia