In his introduction to the catalogue published for a retrospective exhibition at the Salzburg Festival on the work of Vienna-born sculptor Anna Mahler (1904–88), which she did not live to see, Ernst Gombrich reflected on the fragmented career of an artist in exile: ‘We cannot hope ever to see the full range of [her] works. Many were destroyed in an air-raid on her abandoned studios in Vienna.’ Due to her transitory life between London, Los Angeles and Spoleto, Italy, following her forced flight from Vienna in 1938, Mahler’s works have been ‘scattered to the world, or have disappeared from sight’. Her Grand-Prix winning figure of a standing woman installed at the entrance to the Austria Pavilion at the Paris World Fair in 1937 is currently inaccessible (or has disappeared), as is Woman with Pitcher, commissioned for the Festival of Britain. Immersed in the world of music, Mahler’s portrait busts of significant musical and other cultural figures, mainly in bronze, held a particular and enduring place in her work. In parallel, throughout her life Mahler worked in stone, creating mainly female figures, ‘large, heavy creatures’ in the words of her daughter, Marina, which convey intimacy and introspection, however monumental in scale. This article will follow the trajectory of her life; the circles in which she moved in London; and her contribution to various exhibitions. In her own words, the article will evaluate the feeling of ‘inner necessity’ which drove her work, and the lightness of touch she displayed, in the filmed commentary on her ‘double’ sculpture, Two Women (1954).