Art Institute of Chicago

Mohnköpfe (Poppyheads) (Dress or Furnishing Fabric)

Designed by Koloman Moser (Austrian, 1868–1918)

Date

1900

Medium

Silk, wild silk, and cotton, warp-float faced 15:1 satin weave self-patterned by ground weft floats; woven on loom with Jacquard attachment; right selvage present

Culture

Vienna

Department

Textiles

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Koloman Moser, a prominent Viennese designer, cofounded the Wiener Werkstatte (1903–32), a forward-looking Viennese design workshop. Prior to 1903 he was an influential member of the Moderne Movement in Vienna. Moser was also a founder of the Vienna Secession, the association of young artists who had broken away from the Wiener Künstlerhaus, the accepted artistic forum of the time. Poppyheads , designed by Moser three years before the Wiener Werkstätte was formed, foreshadowed the kind of elegant textile designs he would produce at the Werkstätte. The attenuated lines coupled with the simplification and abstraction of organic forms demonstrate a new aesthetic vision of the time shared by artists and designers in Vienna and Glasgow. Moser’s design was produced in various colors by the Viennese firm of Johann Backhausen und Söhne, which was closely linked to the Werkstätte and is still in business today. The textile was intended for upholstery or curtain fabric, ideally for rooms whose design and furnishings would be produced as total environments by Werkstätte artists.

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