Pauline Gibling Schindler (March 19, 1893 – May 4, 1977) was an American composer, educator, editor, and arts promoter, especially influential in supporting modern art in Southern California. Her husband was architect Rudolph Schindler.

Early life and education

Her father was English-born. Pauline Gibling was raised in the New York City area, and attended Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey, where she was classmates with Alfred Kinsey.Jonathan Gathorne-Handy, Sex the Measure of All Things: A Life of Alfred C. Kinsey (Indiana University Press ): 14. She studied music at Smith College, in the class of 1915.Smith College Alumnae Association, Annual Register (1917): 117. After graduation she spent two years teaching piano at Hull House in Chicago, Illinois.Thomas Lawson, "Rhapsody in Pink: Stephen Prina Paints," East of Borneo (April 11, 2013).

She married architect Rudolph Schindler in August 1919 in Chicago. They lived briefly at Taliesin the next year before moving to Los Angeles, where Schindler worked for Frank Lloyd Wright. Their home, the Schindler House in West Hollywood, was completed in 1922, an experiment in shared living, called "the built evocation of Schindler's collaboration with his wife."

Career

While still in Los Angeles, she taught at the Walt Whitman School in Boyle Heights, and served with Rudolph on the school's board. Through the school, they met photographer Edward Weston, whose sons were students there.Beth Gales Warren, Artful Lives: Edward Weston, Margrethe Mather, and the Bohemians of Los Angeles (Getty Publications 2011): 253. The couple hosted social gatherings at Schindler House, with Pauline mainly inviting artists and political thinkers."Sites: Schindler House", The MAK Center for Art and Architecture website. Pauline wrote an affidavit of support for architect Richard Neutra's visa into the United States in 1923, and the Neutras later lived at Schindler House for a few years.Thomas S. Hines, Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern Architecture (University of California Press 1994): 42-43.

After separating from Schindler in 1927, Pauline moved to the artists' colonies at Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. She edited the weekly Carmel Pine Cone newspaper and later The Carmelite publication, where she clashed with fellow editor Lincoln Steffens.

Schindler moved to Oceano, California, where she helped to edit a monthly arts journal, Dune Forum.Dune Forum 1(5)(May 15, 1934): 131, masthead lists her as "Associate Editor." She also lived at Halcyon, Santa Fe, and Ojai during these years.Reuben W. Borough, "Halcyon, Lone Survivor of State's Utopias, is Little Noticed, Likes It," The Fresno Bee (August 6, 1968): 29. via Newspapers.com

She returned to the Schindler House in the late 1930s, and lived there with her ex-husband until he died in 1953, and with others until her death in 1977.Charlie Hailey, Campsite: Architectures of Duration and Place (LSU Press 2008): 231. She painted her side of the house pink, added carpeting and updated the plumbing in her later years.Thomas Lawson, "Rhapsody in Pink: Stephen Prina Paints," East of Borneo (April 11, 2013).

As a musicologist she published as "Sophie P. Gibling," the titles Types of Musical Listening and Problems of Musical Criticism.

Personal life

Gibling and Schindler had one son, Mark. They divorced in 1940.Ehrhard Bahr, Weimar on the Pacific: German Exile Culture in Los Angeles and the Crisis in Modernism (University of California Press 2007): 153. She had a brief relationship with composer John Cage, who was almost twenty years her junior, in the 1930s.Stacey Allan, "The Brief Love of John Cage for Pauline Gibling Schindler," East of Borneo (January 7, 2011).Thomas S. Hines, "'Then Not Yet "Cage"': The Los Angeles Years, 1912-1938," in Marjorie Perloff and Charles Junkerman, John Cage: Composed in America (University of Chicago Press 1994): 84-88.

Death

Pauline died on May 4, 1977 in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 84.

Legacy

The non-profit Friends of Schindler House was formed by Pauline in 1976, shortly before her death, to maintain the house. It has since become an arts center, and is open for architectural tours.Bill Rollins, "Schindler House: All but invisible amid high-rise buildings and trees, home built in 1921 continues to influence inspire", Los Angeles Times (March 13, 1983): r1.

A musical performance based on Schindler's life, Pauline: An Opera, was presented by architects Frank Escher and Ravi GuneWardena at Schindler House, in October 2013."The Perils of Pauline Schindler," Arts Meme (October 15, 2013).

Other sources

References