Postcards of the Wiener Werkstatte: A Catalogue Raisonne Book

Founded in 1903 by architect Josef Hoffmann and designer Koloman Moser, the Wiener Werkstatte, or Vienna Workshops, gathered architects, artists and designers committed to making design excellence available to all. As a form, the postcard presented a perfect medium for the transmission of these ideals, and so it was that in 1907 the Werkstatte began publishing a series of numbered postcards commemorating holidays, depicting new fashions and documenting the sights of Vienna. All of the major designers who worked for the Wiener Werkstatte--including Josef Hoffmann, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, Dagobert Peche, Moriz Jung, Rudolf Kalvach, Mela Koehler and Maria Likarz--contributed to this project, and consequently these postcards constitute an important genre within Wiener Werkstatte production. This fully illustrated volume, published for the Neue Galerie's Fall 2010 exhibition of Wiener Werkstatte postcards (drawn from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection), is the first catalogue raisonne in English devoted to this fascinating, hitherto little-known genre.