Featured Artists
Josef Hoffmann (*1870 in Brtnice, †1956 in Vienna), a student of Otto Wagner, is considered a pioneer and the central protagonist of Viennese Modernism and Jugendstil design and architecture. A founding member of the Vienna Secession and co-founder of the Wiener Werkstätte at the turn of the century, Hoffmann was a consummate artist whose elegant designs for objects and buildings exerted a guiding influence on the shape of European design and architecture in the first half of the twentieth century. Incorporating the decorative aestheticism of Jugendstil with the rationalism of early modernism, Hoffmann created a wide range of designs for interiors, handicrafts and decorative objects, which, together with his architectural work, culminated in the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk (literally: total work of art).
Gustav Klimt (*1862 in Baumgarten, †1918 in Vienna) studied at the School of Applied Arts in Vienna and subsequently founded the Künstler-Compagnie—a company of artists—for painting in interior design and decoration. Therefore he, even as a painter, also remained a craftsman, an „interior decorator“. Because of his interest in decorative flatness and architecturally conceived ornamentation, he opened new possibilities for painting, and, vice versa, gave a boost to the applied arts by helping them to a status comparable to the fine art of painting. Klimt was co-founder and first president of the Vienna Secession. His portrayal of distinctive female figures, often with an erotic connotation, and prominent use of golden ornamentation are world-renowned. Some of his best-known works include the Stoclet Frieze, a series of three mosaics for the dining room located in the Stoclet House in Brussels, home of a wealthy Belgian industrialist, and its accompanying preceding drawings, which are part of the MAK Collection, or his painting Allegory of Sculpture, also held by the MAK.
Koloman Moser (*1868 in Vienna, †1918 in Vienna) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and the School of Applied Arts in Vienna where he later also served as a teacher. Mostly renowned for his highly influential graphic art and illustration designs for books, stamps, posters, vignettes, or postcards (to be witnessed in the Secession’s art journal Ver Sacrum or the sample book Die Quelle), he also created designs for tableware, glass and ceramic objects, furniture, or jewelry, largely characterized by his recurring use of distinctive geometric shapes. Moser, alongside Josef Hoffmann, Gustav Klimt, Carl Moll, and other artists, was a founding member of the Vienna Secession (1897) and co-founder of the Wiener Werkstätte together with Josef Hoffmann and Fritz Wärndorfer (1903).
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Josef Hoffmann - 1905-1906
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Josef Hoffmann - 1907
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Josef Hoffmann - 1904-1908
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Josef Hoffmann - c1923
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Gustav Klimt - 1889
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Gustav Klimt - 1910-1911
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Koloman Moser - 1900
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Koloman Moser - 1899
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Koloman Moser - 1897
