Martha Jungwirth, the Intelligence of Blotches Interview with Laure Adler

I’ve always painted, ever since I was a child. I grew up in the suburbs of Kaisermühlen, in Vienna, very close to the Danube. My grandmother was a staunch socialist and it was important to her that I had an education. She didn’t want me hanging around with the “rascals” who spent their time on the streets. We weren’t any richer than anyone else, but my grandmother had a very clear idea of what you needed to learn in order to develop your abilities. She thought the other children would have a bad influence on me. I was always on my own. She kept me busy with books. And then, as I was already drawing a lot, she bought me a big box of coloured pencils. I loved reading and drawing, but I still wanted to go and play with the other children.They were playing downstairs and I was like a lonely trained monkey. I threw the crayons out of the window at the other children to get their attention. My grandmother rushed in to grab them back. I was scol- ded, she was very strict, but I adored her. She just wanted to keep me busy. Reading prevents stupidity. And drawing was like a kind of time-consuming therapy.

Why therapy? You didn’t need treatment!
My father never came back from the war. And I was brought up by my mother, who was a minor civil servant, and my grandmother. To answer your question, I need to tell you about beetroot salad, about that red colour that I remember so vividly! I loved beetroot salad. Out of love for the colour, I had a habit of adding beetroot to every dish. My grandmother looked my mother in the eye and said: “Mitzi—my mother’s name was typically Viennese—this little girl needs to see a psychiatrist.” [She laughes.]

It’s funny because you’re wearing beetroot-coloured lipstick today.
Back then, I used to colour my lips with beetroot juice. I didn’t know the word “psychiatry” but it didn’t look good to me. It was a recurring threat that they never carried out. I made a friend who came from a more pri- vileged background. She was preparing for the exam to enter the Fine Arts School in Vienna. It was something I hadn’t considered before and, all of a sudden, I said to myself that this was what I wanted too. For a year, I tortured my mother and grandmother, who didn’t have any money, telling them over and over that I wanted to go to art school. In the end, they gave in and I passed the entrance exam, which was something to be proud of. It wasn’t like today, with hundreds of applications.The intake was mainly made up of girls from wealthy families who were struggling at school and a few others from the fringes of the bourgeoisie. We were first admitted to a preparatory class where we drew nudes from models.