JOSEF HOFFMANN* (Pirnitz 1870 - 1956 Vienna)
Design of a vase
pencil/paper 42,5 x 29,9 cm
studio stamp Josef Hoffmann

Photograph of a vase
photography, 22,8 x 16,4 cm
dated 1954
verso inscribed Geschliffene Kristallvase ausgefuehrt von J. & L. Lobmeyer im Auftrag des Unterrichtsministeriums fuer die Triennale 1954; stamped J & L LOBMEYER WIEN I KÄRNTNERSTRASSE 26 R 21 0 78; stamped PROF. JOSEF HOFFMANN WIEN III. SALESIANERGASSE 33

ESTIMATE °€ 200 - 400
STARTING PRICE °€ 200

Josef Hoffmann, a student of Otto Wagner, was one of the central figures of Viennese Modernism as an architect and designer. In 1903, together with Koloman Moser and the industrialist Fritz Waerndorfer, he founded the Wiener Werkstätte (WW), modeled on the British Arts and Crafts Movement and under the influence of Viennese Art Nouveau. Hoffmann, a friend of Gustav Klimt and Anton Hanak, among others, remained one of the WW's most important designers until its bankruptcy in 1932. The Wiener Werkstätte, also referred to as Wiener Werkstatt, Vienna Workshop, Wiener Werkstaetten or Wiener Werkstätten, aimed to unite the entire spheres of human life in design, in the sense of a Gesamtkunstwerk. Its customers were mainly artists and the upwardly mobile Jewish upper and middle classes. Josef Hoffmann's acquaintance with Berta Zuckerkandl led to the first major commission: the Purkersdorf Sanatorium, planned by Viktor Zuckerkandl, Berta's brother-in-law, west of Vienna. Among the WW staff were about a dozen women who were crucial to the change in style from Art Nouveau to Art Deco in the 1920s, e.g. Vally Wieselthier, Gudrun Baudisch, Reni Schaschl, Hilda Jesser and Susi Singer. Josef Hoffmann survived the Nazi period unscathed despite hostility from the Nazi architectural ideologist Paul Schmitthenner. He was commissioned by the Reich Chamber of Fine Arts to further develop the Vienna Arts and Crafts Association (a Nazi successor organization to the Austrian Werkbund) as its artistic director. To this end, an "artistic experimental institute" was founded in 1941, where young artisans could further their education under Hoffmann's guidance. After the war, in 1948, Hoffmann founded the OEsterreichische Werkstätten as the successor to the Wiener Werkstätte und Werkbund (OEWB), of which he had been a member until 1920. Hoffmann's gravestone was designed by Fritz Wotruba. The present composition is probably a design for a fabric for a wallpaper. Along with Andy Warhol, Hoffmann would thus be one of the few great artists of the 20th century to have designed wallpapers.

PLEASE NOTE:
The purchase price consists of the highest bid plus the buyer's premium, sales tax and, if applicable, the fee of artists resale rights. In the case of normal taxation (marked °), a premium of 24% is added to the highest bid. The mandatory sales tax of 13%, for photographs 20%, is added to the sum of the highest bid and the buyer's premium. The buyer's premium amounts to 28% in case of differential taxation. The sales tax is included in the differential taxation.