vienna secession interiors josef hoffman

Klimt was co-founder and first president of the Vienna Secession. Because of his interest in decorative flatness and architecturally conceived ornamentation, he opened new possibilities for painting, and, vice versa, gave a boost to the applied arts by helping them to a status comparable to the fine art of painting. Therefore he, even as a painter, also remained a craftsman, an „interior decorator“. Gustav Klimt (*1862 in Baumgarten, †1918 in Vienna) studied at the School of Applied Arts in Vienna and subsequently founded the Künstler-Compagnie-a company of artists-for painting in interior design and decoration. Incorporating the decorative aestheticism of Jugendstil with the rationalism of early modernism, Hoffmann created a wide range of designs for interiors, handicrafts and decorative objects, which, together with his architectural work, culminated in the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk (literally: total work of art).

A founding member of the Vienna Secession and co-founder of the Wiener Werkstätte at the turn of the century, Hoffmann was a consummate artist whose elegant designs for objects and buildings exerted a guiding influence on the shape of European design and architecture in the first half of the twentieth century. Josef Hoffmann (*1870 in Brtnice, †1956 in Vienna), a student of Otto Wagner, is considered a pioneer and the central protagonist of Viennese Modernism and Jugendstil design and architecture.

Vienna secession interiors josef hoffman