Good Living Street: The Fortunes of My Viennese Family

2013 | Biography

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 family were leading patrons of the arts in fin de siecle Vienna: Gustav Klimt painted his great-grandmother's portrait, Josef Hoffmann designed their lavish residence and Gustav and Alma Mahler were close acquaintances. In Good Living Street Bonyhady 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 unimaginable luxury and privilege until the rise of Nazism made their existence in Austria untenable. In 1938, as Kristallnacht was raging, his family fled Vienna for a small flat in Australia, taking with them the best private collection of art and design to escape the Nazis. As they remade their lives as refugees, the past was rarely discussed and fifty years passed before Tim discovered the remarkable arc of his family's fortunes.

Tim Bonyhady (Author)