€300
HANS AND HERMANN SULZ
Letter to Josef Hoffmann, 4 pages
crayon and ink/paper, 29.7 x 21 cm
provenance: estate of Josef Hoffmann, private collection Vienna
ESTIMATE °€ 300 - 500
STARTING PRICE °€ 300
Josef Hoffmann, a student of Carl Hasenauer and Otto Wagner and a founding member of the Vienna Secession, was one of the central figures of Viennese modernism as an architect and designer. Josef Hoffmann created residential buildings for Carl Moll, Koloman Moser, Eduard Ast, Otto Primavesi, Robert Primavesi and Sonja Knips, among others. In connection with the International Art Exhibition in Rome, for which Hoffmann built the Austrian pavilion, Anton Hanak introduced Hoffmann to the Primavesi family of bankers and industrialists, who were also friends of Gustav Klimt. For Robert Primavesi, Hoffmann built, among other things, the Skywa-Primavesi villa in Vienna-Hietzing, and for his cousin Otto Primavesi he furnished the town house in Olomouc, built a bank house there, and erected a country house in Winkelsdorf. In 1903 Hoffmann founded the Wiener Werkstätte (WW) with Koloman Moser and industrialist Fritz Waerndorfer, modeled on the British Arts and Crafts Movement and influenced by Viennese Art Nouveau. Otto, Eugenia and Robert Primavesi participated in the WW in 1914 with a contribution of 400000 crowns. Hoffmann remained one of the most important designers of WW until its bankruptcy in 1932. The Wiener Werkstätte aimed to unite the entire spheres of human life in design, in the sense of a Gesamtkunstwerk. Among the WW staff were about a dozen women who were crucial to the stylistic shift from Art Nouveau to Art Deco in the 1920s, such as Vally Wieselthier, Gudrun Baudisch, Reni Schaschl, Hilda Jesser, and Susi Singer. Together with Stefan Rath, the head of the glass manufacturer Lobmeyr, Josef Hoffmann founded the Österreichischer Werkbund (ÖWB) in 1912. Hoffmann designed numerous glasses and chandeliers for Lobmeyr during this period. Josef Hoffmann survived the Nazi era 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 Österreichische Werkstätten as the successor to the Wiener Werkstätte and ÖWB. Hoffmann's tombstone was designed by Fritz Wotruba. The present sheet is an illustrated customer letter from the brothers Hans and Hermann Sulz to their uncle "Pepo", i.e. Josef Hoffmann.
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 photographys 20%, is added to the sum of the highest bid and the buyer's premium.
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