Entwurfsskizze

1890s

Applied arts: Mackintosh and the Arts and Crafts movement

In the 1890s he devotes himself extensively to the applied arts, strongly influenced by the Glasgow School artists Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret Macdonald Mackintosh and by the English Arts and Crafts movement.

1899

Begins teaching at the School of Applied Arts

From 1899 he teaches at the Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Applied Arts); other accounts say that from 1900 to 1918 he was a professor at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts.

1900

To the World Exhibition in Paris

In 1900 he travels to the World Exhibition in Paris via Munich and Strasbourg.

1900–1902

The portfolio “Die Quelle” (“The Source”)

With Martin Gerlach and Carl Otto Czeschka he publishes the three-volume portfolio “Die Quelle” (“The Source”) of elegant graphic designs for tapestries, fabrics and wallpaper.

1903

Founds the Wiener Werkstätte

Together with Josef Hoffmann and the entrepreneur Fritz Waerndorfer he founds the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops) to produce decorative and applied-art objects on the model of the Arts and Crafts movement. The workshops turn out glassware, flatware, rugs, textiles, graphic designs and eventually clothing, and become the new commercial standard for Viennese art.

summer 1903

Meets Ferdinand Hodler and Cuno Amiet

In the summer of 1903 he travels via Munich to Bern, where he meets Ferdinand Hodler, who will greatly influence his work (they meet in person twice), and Cuno Amiet; he then goes on to Basel, Paris, Bruges, Scheveningen, Antwerp, Lübeck and Hamburg.