Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Koloman Moser Did It All


Koloman Moser (1868-1918) was one of the leading lights of the Vienna Secession and probably the most versatile of the lot. He designed furniture, posters, stained glass windows and household objects besides doing a little painting. Moreover, the work he did was generally of very high quality (with an exception noted below).

Biographical information on Moser can be found here and here. There are books about him as well; check Amazon or another web site for details.

Here are a few examples of his work:

Gallery

Poster design (not used) for first Secession exhibit - 1898

Poster design - "Read!"

Frommes calendar - 1899

Secession Exhibition poster - 1902

Window, Steinhof chapel - 1905

Cruet stand - 1904-05

100 Crown banknote, Austria-Hungary Bank - 1910

The Three Graces
For some reason Moser was not adept at painting, or so I think. This one is better than most, but still rather messy compared to the clean, well-designed posters, bookmarks and other graphic work he produced.

2 comments:

Bishop said...

Mr. Pittenger, this blog is plenty of beautiful images. Also, I think "The three graces" by Moser, is very beautiful too. Maybe its fluent brushstroke and its risky, modern colour is uncomfortable for you. There is not, as a whole, an authentic, "pre-modernist" art and a decadent, degenerated modern art. There is good art and bad art. I love beautiful paintings, I don't mind if they are flemish paintings or german expresionist paintings. Internet is plenty of "correct" coarse pre-modern paintings (Russians love them), accompanying classical or pre-modern masterworks, many of these ones in your blog. But modernists didn't impose more pressure than the academies did. Beauty, in every time, pulls through, even in the dark times of Damien Hirst and his shark in formaldehyde.

Thank you.

Donald Pittenger said...

And thank you for visiting this blog.