Postcards of the Wiener Werkstätte

Exhibition Celebrates Gift from Philanthropist Leonard A. Lauder of Nearly 1,000 Postcards to Neue Galerie

NEW YORK (June 30, 2010)—From October 7, 2010, to January 17, 2011, the Neue Galerie will present “Postcards of the Wiener Werkstätte: Selections from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection.” This will be the first major museum show ever held in the United States devoted exclusively to the postcards produced by the Wiener Werkstätte. Exhibition material is drawn exclusively from The Leonard A. Lauder Collection and celebrates the promised gift of a near-complete set of the postcards to the Neue Galerie. A fully illustrated catalogue raisonée, published by Hatje Cantz, will accompany the exhibition. It will be the first catalogue raisonné on Wiener Werkstätte postcards to appear in English. The exhibition is organized by distinguished decorative arts curator Christian Witt-Dörring.

The Wiener Werkstätte or Vienna Workshops were founded in 1903 by architect Josef Hoffmann and artist Koloman Moser. Beginning in 1907, the Wiener Werkstätte began publishing a numbered series of postcards, which would ultimately exceed 1,000. There were numerous cards designed to celebrate holidays, such as Easter, Christmas, New Year’s, and others. When the fashion department was founded in 1910, costume and accessories became another popular subject depicted in the postcards, along with illustrations of places in Vienna and elsewhere in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Europe. All of the major designers who worked for the fi rm were contributors in this medium including Josef Hoffmann, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, and Dagobert Peche. Other noteworthy artists who were active in this area include Moriz Jung, Rudolf Kalvach, Mela Koehler, and Maria Likarz, among others.

Postcards of the Wiener Werkstätte 
Selections from the Leonard A. Lauder Collection
Kurator: Christian Witt-Dörring

Künstler: Josef Hoffmann, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, Dagobert Peche, Moriz Jung, Rudolf Kalvach, Mela Koehler, Maria Likarz ...