The Vienna Workshops - Wiener Werkstätte

In addition to being one of the forerunners of the Arts and Crafts movement, the VIENNA WORKSHOPS (Wiener Werkstätte) also influenced many artists and decorative arts professionals for years to come.  The famous American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, is said to have been profoundly inspired by the works of art created at the Vienna Workshops and he incorporated many of their ideas in his own designs.

Founded in 1903 by Josef Hoffmann, a prominent architect (later City Architect of Venice, Italy) and Koloman Moser, an innovative graphics artist, the Vienna Workshops soon attracted numerous other painters, sculptors, textile designers, ceramicists and porcelain modelers and decorators, jewelers, silversmiths etc, who quickly formed a thriving 'Artists Cooperative' unlike any other of its time or since.  Funding was provided by a local Industrialist, Fritz Warndorfer, a generous benefactor of the Arts around the turn of the century.  Being cutting edge for their era, the Vienna Workshops found it difficult to sustain a profitable business for long and eventually closed in 1932.

As most Arts & Crafts items, their creations were unique and rarely produced in large numbers.  As a eir items are extremely collectible today and rare to find.  Almost all of their items are marked or somehow identifiable, especially because of their very individual style. Their main aesthetic contribution is now known as the 'Secessionist' style (Sezession) that was a radical departure from the then prevailing 'classical style', like that seen on many Vienna decorative llates of the period. And although still within the overall Art Nouveau genre, artists at the Vienna Workshops managed to literally create a new “look” that spilled over and found a home in the works of other contemporary artists such as Matisse, Picasso et al.

Today, their works adorn the exhibition halls of many notable European and American museums, private collections and (luckily for us) can still be found at some auction houses and online sales venues. The most well known example of an exhibit of their work is Josef Hoffmann Palais Stoclet in Brussels, which was entirely furnished and decorated with items made by the Wiener Werkstätte.

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