Ben Uri Research Unit

Born: 1907 Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria)

Died: 1972 New York, USA

Year of Migration to the UK: 1928

Other name/s: Emilie Anna Maria Ema Heyszl von Heyszenau

Biography

Art collector, curator and scholar, Ala Story (Emilie Anna Maria Ema Heyszl von Heyszenau) was born into a distinguished family in Vienna, Austria-Hungary (now Austria) in 1907. Her mother, also called Emilie, was the daughter of a wealthy factory owner and her father, Wilhelm, was a commander of the Ulan (Polish) regiments in the Austro-Hungarian army. After his early death from a heart attack in 1913, his widow and children were raised to the nobility and added the 'von Heyszenau' suffix to their name. Story studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna for five years; however, she did not pursue a career as an artist after graduating. Seeing the first retrospective exhibition of Vincent Van Gogh's works in the Neue Galerie, Vienna in 1928 made her abandon her ambitions to become a painter as she deemed herself too inadequate to fulfil this role.

Following this sobering experience, Story moved to London to study English but maintained her interest in art. Her vision was to organise independent exhibitions of contemporary artists, the first of which was a display of the Wiener Werkstätte, the pioneering group's first exhibition in London. To support herself, she started working at the Beaux Arts Gallery in Bruton Place, Mayfair, where Helen Lessore was the secretary at the time (later progressing to be its director). Later, she moved on to take assistant positions nearby at the Redfern Gallery in Cork Street and at the Wertheim Gallery in Burlington Gardens. In 1932, she joined the Wednesday-Thursday Gallery as a partner, originally selling woodcuts and greetings cards under the supervision of Mrs Cochrane. After changing the gallery's name to Storran, 25-year-old Ala became its director and transformed it into a modern and upmarket centre for contemporary artists, such as Duncan Grant and André Derain. However, the artist Frank Coombs saw an opportunity in the basement exhibition rooms and decided to purchase Story's part of the gallery and to change its direction to become more avantgarde by 1935. The following year Story returned to the Redfern Gallery to take on the post of director. In 1938 she took over the Stafford Gallery in St James's. However, at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, she transformed it into a non-profit organisation, under the name 'British Art Centre', to display group exhibitions of artists at war and to help the Contemporary Art Society (CAS) purchase their works for public collections. The Centre was officially opened by the author and humourist Alan Patrick Herbert, and the collector, Samuel Courtauld and Sir Kenneth Clark were invited to head the Honorary Committee. The gallery rapidly expanded its membership to more than 650 patrons and artists, including such prominent names as Augustus John, Jacob Epstein, Bernard Shaw, Gertrude Hermes and Hugh Walpole. It eventually counted more than 1400 members when it had to finally close because of the Blitz in 1940. During this time, Story was helping fellow Austrian émigré photographer Erica Andersen to establish herself as an artist, providing her with job opportunities in the Stafford Gallery and at the British Art Centre.

In 1940, Story received a commission from the art connoisseur Elizabeth Hudson to organise a large-scale exhibition featuring British artists at the Phillips Gallery in Washington D.C. Seizing the opportunity Story moved to the USA, and a few months later, she established the American-British Art Center on West 57th Street in Manhattan, NY, to sponsor and encourage contemporary British artists. She not only excelled in her career but soon found a life-partner in the person of filmmaker and art collector Margaret Mallory. They founded the production company, Falcon Films, together in 1947 to make documentaries on art and artists (their most famous production, featuring painter Grandma Moses, was nominated for an Oscar in 1951 in the best short film category). The couple were commonly referred to singly as 'Mala' by their wide circle of friends (which most notably included Iris Murdoch), who frequented regular gatherings in their villa in Montecito in California. In 1952 Story was appointed to be the second director of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, one of the first women in the USA to become an art museum director. She organised dozens of exhibitions by artists including Oskar Kokoschka, Max Beckmann, Paul Klee, Auguste Rodin, Gertrude Stein, and others. She held this post until 1957 when she became a staff specialist in art at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Both she and Mallory made several donations and contributions to the Santa Barbara Art Gallery. In 1956, Story established the Pacific Coast Biennial, which was an invitation-only series of exhibitions in which she showcased emerging and newly discovered artists. Ala Story died in New York, USA in 1972. In summer 2024, Ala Story featured in Ben Uri's exhibition: Cosmopolis: The Impact of Refugee Art Dealers in London.