JOSEF HOFFMANN* (Pirnitz 1870 - 1956 Vienna) Red Flacon, ...

Hammer

€2,600

JOSEF HOFFMANN*
(Pirnitz 1870 - 1956 Vienna)
Red Flacon, 1934
watercolor and pencil/paper, 29,6 x 20,9 cm
monogrammed JH, dated 34
Austrian architect, interior designer, craftsman and designer. Along with Otto Wagner and Adolf Loos, is considered the most important architect of the 20th century in Austria. Studied architecture at the Academy of Fine Arts under Otto Wagner. In 1895, with Josef Maria Olbrich, Carl Otto Czeschka, Koloman Moser and Leo Kainradl, member of the Club of Seven. Founded the Vienna Secession in 1987 with Gustav Klimt, Koloman Moser, Josef Maria Olbrich, Maximilian Kurzweil, Josef Engelhart, Ernst Stöhr, Wilhelm List, Adolf Hölzel as a split from the Künstlerhaus. 1899 to 1936 professor at the Vienna School of Applied Arts. Founded the Wiener Werkstätte with Kolo Moser in 1903. 1912 founding member of the Wiener Werkbund. Designed many exhibitions, co-founder of the Kunstschau. Initially influenced by French Art Noveau, later influenced by Scottish architect Mackintosh and the British Arts and Crafts Movement. Interested in the implementation of spatial art and the idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk. Architectural designs for, among others, Sanatorium Purkersdorf 1903, Palais Stoclet in Brussels 1905-1911, interior design Cabaret Fledermaus 1909, Villa Skywa-Primavesi 1913-1915, Austria Pavilion for Cologne Werkbundsiedlung 1914, Austria Pavilion Arts and Crafts Exhibition in Paris 1925. Also created designs for interiors, furniture, tables, chairs, boxes, display cases, fabrics, tableware, cutlery, lamps, chandeliers, vases, decorations, etc.
The architect, designer, teacher and exhibition organizer Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) is one of the central figures of Viennese Modernism and the international life reform movement around 1900. He is one of the most important Austrian architects of all. His work, which spans six decades, has been honored with numerous national and international awards. Josef Hoffmann was born as Josef Franz Maria Hoffmann in Pirnitz and grew up in a well-to-do family. The father Josef Hoffmann was mayor and co-owner of a textile factory; the mother Leopoldine Hoffmann, née Tuppy, ran the household with many children. Joseph was the only son; he grew up with three sisters, two other siblings had died shortly after birth. After high school in Iglau (1879-1886) he attended the higher state trade school in Brno (1887-1891), followed by a year's work in the military construction office in Würzburg. In 1892 he came to Vienna, where he became a student of Carl von Hasenauer at the Academy of Fine Arts and from 1894 studied architecture with Otto Wagner. After his diploma (July 1895) he traveled to Italy with a travel grant (Rome Prize). Returning to Vienna from Capri, Hoffmann entered Wagner's studio in 1896/1897. From 1898 he worked as an independent architect and designer. As early as 1895, Hoffmann was a member of the "Club of Seven" along with Josef Maria Olbrich, Koloman Moser (Kolo Moser), C.O. Czeschka and Leo. In 1905 he left the Vienna Secession with the so-called "Klimt Group". In 1938/1939 and from 1945 to 1956 Hoffmann was again a member of the Secession and was the association's president from 1948 to 1950. From 1899 to 1936 Hoffmann was a professor at the Vienna School of Applied Arts (class for architecture). After his (involuntary) retirement, he received a teaching positions at the University of Applied Arts (1937) and the Academy of Fine Arts (1946-1947). On May 1, 1903, he also founded the Wiener Werkstätte together with Kolo Moser and with the support of the banker Fritz Waerndorfer, for whom Hoffmann remodeled his villa at Weimarer Strasse 45 in 1903/1904.
In addition, Josef Hoffmann was a founding member of the Austrian Werkbund in 1912. From 1903 to 1922 Hoffmann was married to Anna Hladik. Their son Wolfgang, with whom he had a difficult relationship throughout his life, was born in 1900. In 1925 Josef Hoffmann married Karla (Carla) Schmatz. Hoffmann's students included Carl Witzmann, Oswald Haerdtl and Otto Prutscher. In addition to his teaching activities, Hoffmann designed many exhibitions and was also a co-founder of the "Kunstschau". Hoffmann developed a lively building activity in Vienna, which reached its peak in the years before the First World War. With the Purkersdorf sanatorium, which he built in 1903 with the help of Berta Zuckerkandl, Hoffmann became one of the most important architects of the new architecture. Hoffmann made his internationally recognized name by building the Palais Stoclet in Brussels, a masterpiece of post-impressionism and symbolism (1905-1911), in the interior design of which Gustav Klimt played a key role. In Vienna, Hoffmann designed, among other things, the business portal of k. and k. Court and State Printing Office (1908), the interior design of the "Fledermaus" cabaret (1909) and the renovation of the Graben Café (1912). He designed the Austrian pavilion for the Cologne Werkbund exhibition in 1914 as well as for the arts and crafts exhibition in Paris in 1925. After the First World War he built residential complexes for the city of Vienna from 1924, for example the Winarskyhof and the Klosehof. In 1929 he designed a project for an art gallery on Karlsplatz, which was never realised. He built houses 8, 9, 10 and 11 in the Werkbundsiedlung. entrusted with the construction of the House of the Wehrmacht in Vienna.

SCHÄTZPREIS/ESTIMATE °€ 500 - 1.000