UNKNOWN PHOTOGRAPHERFacade detail of the Sigmund Berl house,...

Hammer

€150

UNKNOWN PHOTOGRAPHER
Facade detail of the Sigmund Berl house, Freudenthal
silver gelatin deduction/cardboard, 60.7 x 44.7 cm
verso inscribed Wohnhaus S. Berl, Freudenthal CSR and stamped ATELIER OB. BAUR. PROF. ARCH. DR. h.c. JOSEF HOFFMANN
provenance: Carla Hoffmann, private collection Vienna

ESTIMATE °€ 100 - 300
STARTING PRICE °€ 100

Josef Hoffmann, a student of Carl Hasenauer and Otto Wagner, was one of the central figures of Viennese modernism as an architect and designer. In connection with the 1911 International Art Exhibition in Rome, for which Hoffmann had built the Austrian pavilion, Hoffmann became acquainted with the Primavesi family of industrialists and bankers through the mediation of the sculptor Anton Hanak. For Otto and Eugenia Primavesi, close friends of Gustav Klimt, Hoffmann furnished a few rooms in their Olomouc townhouse and built a villa in the Moravian village of Winkelsdorf (Kouty nad Desnou) as well as a bank house in Olomouc. Commissioned by Otto's cousin Robert Primavesi, Hoffmann first adapted an older country house for Primavesi's partner Josefine Skywa. Subsequently, the Skywa-Primavesi villa in Vienna-Hietzing was built from 1913 to 1915. From 1919 to 1922 Hoffmann built a prestigious house for Sigmund Berl in Freudenthal (Bruntál), Moravia, for which Hoffmann and the Wiener Werkstätte (WW) also created furnishings, such as chandeliers. In 1903, Hoffmann founded the Wiener Werkstätte with Koloman Moser and industrialist Fritz Waerndorfer, modeled on the British Arts and Crafts Movement and influenced by Viennese Art Nouveau. Hoffmann remained one of WW's most important designers 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. 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, 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, some of which are still produced by Lobmeyr today. 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 und Werkbund (ÖWB). Hoffmann's tombstone was designed by Fritz Wotruba.

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.
The buyer's premium amounts to 28% in case of differential taxation. The sales tax is included in the differential taxation.