The textile patterns and prints of the Wiener Werkstatte were among the most popular and successful designs of the early twentieth century, reflecting both the tastes of Viennese high society and the general trend towards artistic abstraction. Textiles of the Wiener Werkstatte, 1910-1932 presents selections from the original gouache drawings, pattern books and about 20,000 actual samples now in the collection of the Museum for Applied Arts in Vienna - a truly remarkable archive of most of the over 1,800 recorded fabric designs. These range from the early rounded naturalistic motifs of Art Nouveau to the later angular geometric designs associated with Art Deco. Angela Volker's text gives succinct accounts of a range of topics, including the designs by Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffmann for Backhausen and Sohne prior to the foundation of the textile department in about 1910, methods of production, sales policy, customers and end use.
A wealth of reproductions, many in colour, are supplemented by an exhaustive catalogue and artist biographies, as well as contemporary photographs of the textiles' uses in fashion and interior decoration, including exhibition pavilions and the Wiener Werkstatte's own showrooms. For designers, decorators or anyone simply in search of visual inspiration, this book is a goldmine and an amazing tribute to a period of astonishing creativity.