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SOUTHAMPTON, N.Y. — There are certain phrases one doesn't expect to hear from the mouth of a high-profile European heiress. "Massages make me nervous" is one of them, and yet there it is, uttered by Katharina Otto-Bernstein, whose family founded the German mail order giant Otto Group. The 38-year-old mother of two also disdains makeup artists "fiddling" with her face and going to the hair salon (no offense to her stylist, Henry).
While most women of a similar ilk say these kinds of things out of false modesty, one can't help but believe Otto-Bernstein.
"She couldn't have less patience for anything that has to do with woman stuff," says her friend Vanessa von Bismarck. "She's a tomboy."
Indeed, the buxom blonde looks perfectly at ease sitting on the veranda of the Southampton home she decorated herself, wearing a turquoise cotton T-shirt, no makeup, her wet hair pulled back. She appears much more herself than she did the night before, all gussied up for the Parrish Art Museum's annual summer party.
Otto-Bernstein cochaired the evening and has been a longtime supporter of the museum, and she is well ensconced in the art scene — her husband, Nathan, is a gallerist, and her sister runs the private Goetz Collection gallery in Munich. Otto-Bernstein is also a filmmaker and this Sunday will screen "Absolute Wilson," a documentary on Robert Wilson, in Southampton.
She spent nearly seven years trailing the avant-garde artist, who maintains an impossible schedule, jetting from Seville to Milan to Copenhagen to Thailand for his various projects. "There are a lot of shots of him from the back," she laughs.
The project covers Wilson's life, including his childhood in Waco, Tex., his work as a "movement" therapist, his attempted suicide and, finally, his present success directing surreal performances all across Europe. "He told me about his muses, who were the deaf-mute child Raymond Andrews and the brain-damaged child Christopher Knowles. What more fascinating muses can you have that aren't the lover or the mother?" Otto-Bernstein asks. "But I really had no clue what he did in the Sixties, and I also had no idea how walled-off he would be."
While most women of a similar ilk say these kinds of things out of false modesty, one can't help but believe Otto-Bernstein.
"She couldn't have less patience for anything that has to do with woman stuff," says her friend Vanessa von Bismarck. "She's a tomboy."
Indeed, the buxom blonde looks perfectly at ease sitting on the veranda of the Southampton home she decorated herself, wearing a turquoise cotton T-shirt, no makeup, her wet hair pulled back. She appears much more herself than she did the night before, all gussied up for the Parrish Art Museum's annual summer party.
Otto-Bernstein cochaired the evening and has been a longtime supporter of the museum, and she is well ensconced in the art scene — her husband, Nathan, is a gallerist, and her sister runs the private Goetz Collection gallery in Munich. Otto-Bernstein is also a filmmaker and this Sunday will screen "Absolute Wilson," a documentary on Robert Wilson, in Southampton.
She spent nearly seven years trailing the avant-garde artist, who maintains an impossible schedule, jetting from Seville to Milan to Copenhagen to Thailand for his various projects. "There are a lot of shots of him from the back," she laughs.
The project covers Wilson's life, including his childhood in Waco, Tex., his work as a "movement" therapist, his attempted suicide and, finally, his present success directing surreal performances all across Europe. "He told me about his muses, who were the deaf-mute child Raymond Andrews and the brain-damaged child Christopher Knowles. What more fascinating muses can you have that aren't the lover or the mother?" Otto-Bernstein asks. "But I really had no clue what he did in the Sixties, and I also had no idea how walled-off he would be."
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