Alfred Roller

In 1897 he co-founded the Viennese Secession with Koloman Moser, Joseph Maria Olbrich, Josef Hoffmann, Gustav Klimt, and other artists who rejected the prevalent academic style of art.

He designed numerous covers and vignettes for the pages of the Secessionist periodical Ver Sacrum, as well as the posters for the fourth, fourteenth, and sixteenth Secession exhibitions.

Roller expressed an interest in stage design and showed Mahler several sketches he had made for Wagner's Tristan und Isolde.

In 1906 he married the Viennese Secession painter Mileva Roller and they had two sons: Dietrich (1909–2001) became a doctor, while Ulrich (1911–1941) became a stage designer and died in Stolpovo near Kaluga (in the Soviet Union) shortly after Christmas 1941.

[2] Eventually, Roller left the Secession and his teaching post at the Kunstgewerbeschule to be appointed chief stage designer to the Vienna State Opera, a position he held until 1909.