LOTTE AND HER MAÎTRE
An audioplay
by Susanne Ayoub

Lotte Profohs in her studio. She always painted on the floor.

Saturday, November 16, 2024
09:05 a.m. on Ö1 + 30 days in ORF ON

https://oe1.orf.at/programm/20241116/775945/Das-legendaere-Kuenstlerpaar-Lotte-Profohs-und-Leherb

with Gerti Drassl + Silvia Meisterle + Michael Dangl + Jörg Stelling
Sound engineering by Elmar Peinelt and Jakob Kainz
Edited by Elisabeth Stratka
A production of the ORF Feature Department, 2022

The book cover of Lotte Profohs‘s magnum opus, the picture cycle “Erbarmt euch der Frauen“ (Take Pity on Women).

About the play
The Viennese artist couple Lotte Profohs and Leherb, idolized and admired in the 1960s and 70s, established their success with performances that were scandlous at the time. Lotte’s international career began early when she invented Leherb and herself as fictional characters, remaining on the sidelines as an artist while being omnipresent as a muse and a model. It was a young love that lasted a lifetime, even if it was not a happy relationship. Lotte attempted suicide several times. In middle age she withdrew from public view. Leherb, on the other hand, continued to appear in baroque costumes trimmed with live mice and a stuffed pigeon, until he died in 1997 at age 64. Their drug-addicted son Anselm followed him four years later. Lotte Profohs outlived both of them, surrounded by her dove Arabella and the mice Paul and Pierre, until 2012.

A Congenial Collaboration
Two jointly produced audio recordings present a special aspect of the couple’s congenial collaboration. Autodafé, a sort of surreal audio play with Boy Gobert as narrator, and Irre Gut (Insanely Good), with lyrics written and sung by both artists and musical arrangements by Toni Stricker, remain a revealing and refreshing listening experience to this day.

Translation Geoffrey Howes