Mahler, Josef, 1886-1963

Dates

• Existence: 1886 (date of birth) -1963 (date of death) - 1963

Biography

Josef Mahler was an Austrian businessman born in 1886. His father, Sigmund Mahler, founded the Austrian paper company Brüder Mahler Papier und Pappenfabriken. His younger brother, Ernst Mahler, immigrated to the United States in 1912 to work for Kimberly-Clark Corporation in Wisconsin. Ernst Mahler and his wife, Carol, were also instrumental in founding and supporting the Bergstrom Mahler Museum of Glass in Neenah, Wisconsin.

Josef Mahler married Fritzi Forster, and the couple lived in Vienna. They began collecting Biedermeier glass prior to World War II and evidently sent their glass collection to Fritzi Forster Mahler's sister in London for safekeeping in the mid-1930s. Ernst Mahler assisted the couple in immigrating to the United States after the Austrian Anschluss of 1938. They settled in Larchmont, New York, and continued to build their glass collection.

Fifty objects from the Josef and Fritzi Mahler Glass Collection were exhibited at The Corning Museum of Glass in 1966, three years after Josef Mahler's death. After Fritzi Mahler's death, the collection was sold at auction by Wiener Kunstauktion on September 27, 1994. The auction catalog notes the objects exhibited in Corning