Jacqeline Groag 15 15/4/09 16:01 Page 8

Jacqeline Groag 15 15/4/09 16:01 Page 8 1. Jacqueline Groag, by John Garner, 1957. Design Council Archive, University of Brighton Design Archives Jacqeline Groag 15 15/4/09 16:01 Page 10 Geoffrey Rayner Introduction School in Holland and, in Britain, the sub- Whilst they designed a wide variety of Jacqueline Groag was one of the small cultural Feminine or gay post-Impressionist avant-garde domestic objects, both functional group of talented pioneer women designers aesthetic of Bloomsbury and the Omega and decorative, many of their designs for the who were influential in the development of Workshops. Werkstätte from the 1920s were for furnishing Modernist design and culture in early twentieth Although each of these were valid and fashion textiles. By that time avant-garde century Europe. Many were designers interpretations of twentieth century modernity, pattern design and the decorative arts in of major significance – albeit from rival amongst the influential doyens of the general were caricatured by their misogynistic schools of modernity – such as France’s International Modern Movement surface and patronizing opponents as ‘feminine’ Charlotte Perriand, Ireland’s Eileen pattern and decoration were dismissed as occupations: superficial and insignificant, Gray and Germany’s Marianne Brandt superficial and unimportant. In Adolf Loos’ something for women and dilettantes to and a number who, like Jacqueline, polemical pamphlet of 1908, ‘Ornament and indulge in. Christopher Reed, writing on this remain less well known. Few received Crime’, he equates decoration with what he sees subject with reference to Bloomsbury and the recognition of their achievements in as the primitive and criminal activities of graffiti Omega Workshops, comments on ‘the usual their lifetimes, or at least not until and tattooing. For Loos, decoration and priorities of art history which have made the comparatively late in their careers – ornamentation equalled degeneration which he notion of avant-garde domesticity an oxymoron, careers that were, in the main, directly connected with women and savages and in the process removing Bloomsbury’s paintings overshadowed by those of their male the reverse, a lack of decoration, as the pinnacle from the canon of modernism and refusing to 1. Jacqueline Groag, by John counterparts. Jacqueline’s chosen path, that of of human achievement and conversely the consider the murals, ceramics, textiles, and Garner, 1957. Design Council pattern design, only further served to obscure removal of ornament as cultural evolution.2 Of wallpapers as art at all’.9 Archive, University of Brighton Design Archives the brilliance of her international achievement, Modernist attitudes to ‘Femininity’ in 1920s Following the Werkstätte’s showing at 1 Lesley Jackson, 20th Century particularly in the field of textile design. Lesley Czechoslovakia, M. Pachmanova writes that, the 1925 Paris Exposition Internationale, Adolf Pattern Design: Textile and Jackson, in her book 20th Century Pattern Loos’ diatribes against its products became Wallpaper Pioneers, Mitchell Czech modernist architects and designers were quick to adopt Design: Textile and Wallpaper Pioneers, increasingly fierce and vehement. Benno Beazley, London, 2002, p.6. Loosian ideals, and especially in the 1920s and the beginning of 2 comments that: Reifenberg, echoing Le Corbusier, wrote of the A. Sarnitz, Loos, Taschen, the 1930s declared war not only on ornament, but also on all Cologne, 2003 pp.84-89. Loos’ displays that ‘the Wiener Werkstätte has poured 1908 essay, first published in Given the obvious appeal of textiles and wallpapers, it has always socio-cultural phenomena that did not conform to assumed signs its trifling life into these showcases, the bric-a- English in 1913, reprinted in surprised me that surface pattern has so often been marginalized of progress, including Femininity.3 Sarnitz’s 2003 publication. brac of the boudoir, fashion and toys; a motley within mainstream histories of 20th-century design. While the 3 M. Pachmanova, Conference In 1925, in Towards a New Architecture, Le pile out of Santa Claus’s sack’.10 achievements of William Morris during the 19th century are paper, ‘Civilized Woman: Czech Corbusier writes of his domestic ideal of the As a former Arts and Crafts student of Functionalism and the widely recognised, very few pattern designers since then have Cultivation of Femininity’, Design house as ‘a machine for living in’, in opposition Hoffmann’s at the Kunstgewerbeschule, and a been awarded the same degree of attention.1 History Society/Norwich School to the traditional ‘cult of the home’ with ‘rooms female designer of textiles for the Wiener of Art and Design Conference, 2003. A great deal of this marginalization, and too small, a conglomeration of useless and Werkstätte, Jacqueline Groag would have been 4 4 Le Corbusier, Towards a New subsequent neglect and trivialisation of pattern disparate objects ... and absurd bric-a-brac’. a prime candidate for the disapprobation of the Architecture, trans. Frederick design and decoration, has its origins in the Christopher Reed views Le Corbusier’s house as devotees of the International Modern Etchells, Rodker, London 1927. early twentieth century when, despite a wide ‘a corrective version of Modernism’ in which the Movement. However, in her case there were also 5 Christopher Reed, Conference paper, ‘Designs for (Queer) spectrum of schools of modernity, design and ‘properly masculine engineers aesthetic other, more sinister, forces at work. It was from Living; Amusing Design of the architectural theory was increasingly dominated suppressed design styles’5 that Le Corbusier amongst the highly educated and cultured 1920s (Bloomsbury Design)’, Design History Society/Norwich by the rational, reductive and functionalist compared to ‘unclean orchids, ... blue hortensias Jewish middle classes that many of the patrons School of Art and Design concepts of male architects such as Adolf Loos, and green chrysanthemums’.6 Such attitudes of, and leading contributors to, Vienna’s Conference, 2003. Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe. Their were as dismissive of the textiles of the artists dazzling intellectual and artistic life in the early 6 Le Corbusier. influence and authority continued to grow until Raoul Dufy and Sonia Delaunay, and product twentieth century were drawn, and Jacqueline, 7 Ursula Prokop, Das Architekten the 1930s and the apotheosis of the style of the in the French inspired Art Deco style, as those of like many of the women of the Werkstätte, was und Designer – Ehepaar, Jacques und Jacqueline Groag, Zwei International Modern Movement associated the avant-garde Wiener Werkstätte. Jewish. In Austria in the early twentieth century vergessene Kunstler der Wiener with the Bauhaus and Le Corbusier. Ursula Prokop has noted that in Austria in there was a heavy undercurrent of anti- Moderne, Bohlau Verlag, Wien, Köln, Weimar, 2005, p.55. Up to this point there were still a number the early part of the twentieth century an Semitism. This became particularly clear during 8 Angela Volker, Textiles of the of particularly distinctive voices in the general education in the applied arts was practically the the rise of National Socialism, when the Wiener Werkstätte 1910-1932, cacophony of competing versions of Modernity. only artistic option available to women as Werkstätte became the target of numerous Thames & Hudson, London, 1994, p.116. However, it was the sparse minimalism of virtually all fine art academies refused to accept defamatory articles. 7 9 Christopher Reed, Bloomsbury Bauhausian-influenced design and architecture them. It is perhaps no surprise then that in the Given all of this, it is hardly surprising that Rooms, Modernism, Subculture, that was increasingly hailed, within mainstream years immediately following the end of the First the remarkable achievements of the creators of and Domesticity, published for western European Modernist culture, as the World War an increasing number of the Wiener surface design in the early twentieth century, The Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts, ultimate achievement. Opposed to this purity Werkstätte designers were women, most of particularly avant-garde textile designers – who Design and Culture, New York, was the perceived decadence of a more whom were former students of Josef Hoffmann were mainly women – should have been by Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2004. decorative modernity, such as that associated from the Wien Kunstgewerbeschule (Vienna obscured and marginalised, and their 10 Benno Reifenberg, ‘West – with the Vienna Secession, particularly the Arts and Craft School). It was from then on that contribution to the enhancement of the quality Kunst – Gewerbe, Zur avant-garde domesticity of the later work of women had ‘a virtual monopoly in determining and pleasure of people’s daily lives trivialised. internationalen Ausstellung in Paris’, Frankfurter Zeitung, 5 Josef Hoffmann and the Wiener Werkstätte, or how the Wiener Werkstätte and its products This dismissive attitude towards the art of August 1925. the decorative expressionism of the Amsterdam would be viewed’.8 pattern design and decoration had a long 11 Jacqeline Groag 15 15/4/09 16:01 Page 12 afterlife which continued until recent times. In the years between 1937 and 1946, Post Second World War, the defeat of Jacqueline’s path and that of Karin Williger, Fascism and the retreat of authoritarian and a younger Jewish woman from Vienna, ran totalitarian attitudes created

Load more