Jacques and Jacqueline Groag, Architect and Designer Two Hidden Figures of the Viennese Modern Movement
Produktdetaljer
Biografisk notat
Ursula Prokop is a Viennese art and architecture historian who has written several books and regularly lectures on her research in the field of architecture and cultural history in the first half of the 20th century. She has contributed to numerous publications, collaborative studies, and research for exhibitions. In addition to writing the definitive biography and analysis of Jacques and Jacqueline Groag and their work, Das Architekten- und Designer-Ehepaar Jacques and Jacqueline Groag: Zwei vergessene Künstler der Wiener Moderne (Böhlau 2005), she is the author of a biography of Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein (Böhlau 2003), acclaimed by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Kunstmarkt as a biography that “makes the past come to life in an exciting way.” The Neue Zürcher Zeitung called the Stonborough-Wittgenstein book one “of high merit” and “insightful into the lives of the Wittgenstein family,” while the review from the Süddeutsche Zeitung found the book exemplary for providing “new contours” not just to the Wittgenstein family story and Margaret, one of the more famous sitters for Gustav Klimt, but to the picture of early-20th-century bourgeoisie life. Prokop’s earlier biography of controversial architect Rudolf Perco (Rudolf Perco 1884–1942: From the Architecture of Red Vienna to Nazi Megalomania ; Böhlau 2001) was the first comprehensive biography of this model student of Otto Wagner and Prix-de-Rome winner of 1910. It explored his adventuresome unbuilt designs, his descent into a utopian fantasy of state control, his disenchantment with the Nazis and subsequent disenfranchisement, leading to his suicide in 1942. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung found the book to have “a wealth of facts” and to be “meticulously researched.”The Festival of Britain, the third and much the largest of the post-war design bonanzas is now regarded mainly as the start of the mass-public acceptance of the ‘modern’ design and architecture. … It opened up the possibilities inherent in designing and influenced the whole development of the modern multi-disciplinary design office. The Festival was British, extravagantly so, … but it is ironic that many of the main designers of the Festival in the post-war periods had in fact arrived from abroad: Stefan Buzas, Jacques and Jacqueline Groag. …Where would British design have been without this foreign input?<br /><b>– Fiona McCarthy/Patrick Nugents, <i>Eye for Industry, Royal Designers 1936–1986</i></b>
Jacques Groag´s living spaces exhibit an attitude that abstains from exaggerated “sober” motifs. Next to the purist cheerfulness that is at play, imagination rules, as well as delicate proportions, which are a mental rather than utilitarian matter. This architect has created living spaces that veritably dissolve in light. There is an impulse to open up walls and to take away their material bodies. The fact that Groag came from painting to architecture is apparent via the pictorial effects; it is obvious that he masters the technicalities. … Almost all of the rooms share a tendency towards delicate fabric covers that dissolve the boundaries of the rooms, a preference for natural-colored floor mats, and for light colors as such.<br /><b>– <i>Innendekoration</i></b>
Jacqueline Groag's long life of creativity received its strong foundations from the remarkable period of Viennese Arts and Crafts that – after three generations – we now recognize as the source of much of what European culture has given to the world. As one of the very few pupils of that great teacher, Josef Hoffmann, Jacqueline survived into our time of turbulence and uncertainty to make us understand that our lives are of real value only when we live with beauty.<br /><b>– Stefan Buzas, Eulogy for Jacqueline Groag, January 21, 1986</b>
The fact is, that [Jacques Groag] was, until the Nazis invaded Austria, one of the leading and most successful avant-garde architects in Vienna, where he was for many years engaged on work for important housing projects, public buildings and private houses. … In Britain in the absence of any architectural work, he was glad to supply himself to utility furniture. When, after the war, building activities were resumed, no one in Britain seemed to be aware any longer of his caliber as an architect, and Groag himself was much too modest a man to claim what, by rights, ought to have been his due.<br /><b>– Sir Gordon Russell, <i>SIA Journal</i></b>
[Jacqueline Groag lives] in a world of imagination. […] Starlight, with its interweaving of delicate chains, suggests to me marvellous and mysterious talks under the stars. I cannot remember designs for fabrics affecting me in this way before.<br />
<b>– Charles Reilly, <i>Art and Industry</i></b>
Few designers can move easily from abstract design to the representational and produce equally good work in both disciplines. Jacqueline Groag not only possesses this special gift but also the ability to abstract from life so that reality still exists in many of her patterns, but transformed by the wit and charm of her own personality.<br /><b>– <i>The Ambassador</i></b>
Her work […] in the clarity of its line and colour as much as subject-matter, eluded received notions and never lost an element of child-like wonder, of day dreaming.<br /><b>– Isabelle Anscombe, author of <i>A Woman’s Touch</i></b>
[Jacqueline Groag] constantly and ingeniously exploited the decorative possibilities of simple motifs, frequently in highly complex designs.<br /><b>– <i>House and Garden</i></b>
The art historian Ursula Prokop empathically describes the life of the Groags [...] and characterizes their artistic achievements. The difficulty of finding sources – Groag's buildings have been extensively changed, many of his furniture have been lost or are widely scattered – made the research for the present double biography at first slow and tedious. Nevertheless, the author has managed to convey a multifaceted and vivid picture of [the Groags'] contemporary history, as well as highlighting the influence that the continental avant-garde had on British design of the post-war years and the acceptance of a modern language of form. Thus, the work that emerged in the context of a research project carried out at the University of Vienna is not only a late tribute to the two designers in their old homeland, but also a contribution to the subject of the individual design history that goes beyond individuality.<br /><b>– Dagmar Steffen, <i>Bauwelt</i></b>
Ursula Prokop offers an extensively researched book on the Viennese architect and designer couple Jacques and Jacqueline Groag that provides new information and new insight into the lives of two talented artists whose modernist work crossed over political. geographical, and cultural frontiers. [...] The book is a well-documented overview of the couple's lives and works. It introduces biographical material collected and preserved from many different collections, especially those of the two nephews, Mr. Jan Groag in New York and Dr. Willi Groag in Maanit, Israel. [...] This is a pioneering work that rightfully places the artists Jacques and Jacqueline Groag within the field of Viennese Modernism.<br /><b>– Elana Shapira, <i>Centropa</i></b>
Moving forward in time throughout the book, I couldn't help wonder if the couple would have been remembered — not "largely forgotten" [as the author states] — if they would have emigrated to the United States, where fellow Austrians R.M. Schindler and Richard Neutra went. I imagine the Austrian-Jewish-émigré version of Charles and Ray Eames. [ … ] With skills in architecture, interior design, textiles, paintings, and other aspects of art and design, the Groags were capable of creating complete environments.<br /><b><i>—A Daily Dose of Architecture</i></b>
This July Ursula Prokop's well-researched biography of Groag and his wife Jacqueline was published by DoppelHouse Press, bringing to our attention these two important designers who practiced in Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Britain after World War II. […] The legacy of Jacques Groag lies in helping make Adolf Loos' and Ludwig Wittgenstein's architectural designs possible, producing his own modernist building designs, furnitures and interiors, and contributing an excellent [duplex] at the Werkbundsiedlung in Vienna. Jacqueline Groag is considered one of the most important British postwar designers. Both Jacques and Jacqueline were essential pieces in the multi-faceted Czech and Slovak tapestry of endeavor to enrich the world of art, design and architecture. <p><b><i>— British Czech and Slovak Review</i></b></p>
A meticulous excavation of the lives of these two seminal figures in the Viennese modern movement, who, if not entirely lost to history, previously were mere peripheral actors. This book, originally published in German in 2005, has altered the terrain: the Groags are now very much present in the consciousness of scholars in the field. They are hidden no more, and their rediscovery has prompted some reassessment of them and their work, but also of the history of Viennese design.<p>—<b><i>Central European History Journal</i></b></p>
Ursula Prokop [...] extends her commitment to presenting the interwar environment in Vienna as a leading center of a modern movement wherein Jewish creatives and clients played an important role. ... Prokop has gathered an impressive amount of information and presents a thrilling story of the partially forgotten Groags. (A complete list of the Groags’ projects and an accessible bibliography is also useful for resuscitating the pair’s design careers.)<br /><strong>– Ladislav Jackson, <em>Design and Culture Journal</em></strong>
Between the two world wars, Vienna was a major hub of creative activity, especially in the fields of painting, architecture, and design. [...] In 1938, the Groags, like many of Vienna's Jewish artists and intellectuals who were not sent to concentration camps, were forced into exile by the Nazi regime. This expulsion not only deprived many people of their homes and livelihoods; it also left Austria bereft of a creative energy that had defined a rich, innovative era there. Ursula Prokop's abundantly illustrated double biography brings these little-known figures and their fascinating work to life.<br /><strong>–<em>The Paper Brigade</em> / Jewish Book Council</strong>
Prokop’s meticulous history restores Jacques and Jacqueline Groag to their rightful places in the pantheon of Viennese Modernists.
Prokop explores their individual careers in Vienna and Czechoslovakia, their early collaborations in the 1930s, their lives as Jewish émigrés, and the couple’s unique contributions in Britain for postwar exhibitions, monuments, furniture and textile design, even a dress for future-queen Elizabeth II. Full color edition, supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.
The Early Years The background and education of Jacques Groag
World War I and professional beginnings
The First Projects
Collaboration on the Wittgenstein House, 1926–29
The Moller Villa, 1927–1928
The first independent project: The Groag Villa in Olmütz, 1927–1928
Vienna´s artistic environment
The Artistic Breakthrough
Projects in Vienna and Moravia – first success as an interior architect
Getting to know Hilde Blumberger
The duplex at the Vienna Werkbundsiedlung, 1931–1932
Furniture and interiors
The Gustav Stern House in Perchtoldsdorf, 1932/33
The Paula and Hans Briess Villa in Olmütz, 1933
Projects in the Late 1930s
Ing. Rudolf Seidler Villa in Olmütz, 1935
Conversion and furnishings of the Paula Wessely Villa in Vienna-Grinzing, 1935
Otto Eisler country house in Ostravice, 1935–1939
The late 1930s – various projects in Moravia-Ostrau and Brno
Displacement and intermezzo in Prague, 1938–1939
Emigration and a New Beginning in England
Escape and a difficult start
The end of the war – an urban planning project for Soho, 1945
Jacqueline Groag establishes herself as a textile designer
The emigrants in England – a problematic situation
The Groags After the War – Utility Furniture and Exhibition Design
The utility furniture program – a new arena
The first postwar exhibitions – Modern Homes and Britain Can Make It, 1946
Further exhibitions – Ideal Home, 1949 and British Industries Fair, 1950
The end of the postwar era – The Festival of Britain, 1951
The 1950s – Jacques Groag’s interiors and painting as therapy
The late work of Jacqueline Groag
Conclusion
Jacques Groag – Catalog of Works
Architecture, interior design and furniture design
Painting and graphic art
Professional articles and publications
Bibliography
Monographs, catalogs, and articles
Unpublished typescripts and manuscripts
Periodicals – Jacques Groag
Periodicals – Jacqueline Groag
Archives and private sources
DRCs on Edelweiss
Tailored campaign to academic and museum audiences
Social media campaign
Excerpt on The Nomadic Journal
ollaboration with The Initiative for Architecture and Design on Film for a “Design Onscreen” film, which would be pitched to Netflix, Amazon, PBS, and others (tbd)
Jacques Groag and his wife were not born in Vienna, but came from countries belonging to the double monarchy. Yet it is appropriate to call them “Viennese” artists because they received their education in the capital city, and that city was the focal point of their lives and artistic work until 1938. The Groags’ ouevre is fundamentally embedded in the artistic environment of the Austrian interwar period. The couple’s identity is nevertheless complex and eschews strict national attributions due to their complex biographic circumstances: Jacques Groag was active not only in Vienna, but also realized numerous building projects in the former Czechoslovakia; Jacqueline Groag (Hilde Blumberger) worked briefly in France and the United States before leaving Austria. After emigrating to Great Britain, the couple found a second home and a new artistic milieu.
The Groag’s story particularly highlights the destructive incursion of National Socialism into the cultural life of Central Europe, which is still felt today. While Jacques Groag’s buildings and interiors enjoyed numerous comprehensive publications during his lifetime, his work was soon entirely forgotten in Austria. In regard to his work as a furniture designer, the situation was even worse. The majority of his furniture pieces were lost, and the few remaining pieces were spread all over the world as their owners also emigrated – from Haifa and Jerusalem to London, Vienna and Olmütz (Olomouc). In 1978, Vladimir Šlapeta was the first scholar to bring attention to the “Olmütz Students of Adolf Loos” and to Jacques Groag; his important essay, however, was limited mostly to Groag’s projects in Olmütz.
In a 1995 exhibition catalog about architects who immigrated to London, a short article published by Charlotte Benton dealt with the subject in a similar way, almost exclusively considering Jacques Groag's furniture design in England. His architectural work from before the war was hardly discussed. Consideration of Groag only entered the discourse of architectural history due to an uptick of interest in Ludwig Wittgenstein and widespread interest in his so-called “Wittgenstein house” from the late 1920s in Vienna. In his monograph about the building, Paul Wijdeveld was the first to point out that the Jacques Groag, a trained civil engineer, was not only the chief contractor, but had played a further role in the design. Yet until now, there has been no comprehensive reassessment of Groag’s work and activity, which is in part due to the pre-war division of his oeuvre between Vienna and Czechoslovakia, and after the war, the fact that he worked exclusively in England. [...] The present work had been produced thanks to research project no. 7726, sponsored by the National Bank´s Jubiläumsfond (Jubilee Fund), conducted by the Institut für Kunstgeschichte (Institute for Art History) of the Vienna University under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Peter Haiko, to whom I also extend my thanks.
A minor difficulty is presented by the spelling of the Czech locations whose former German name is now not typically used. However, for the sake of simplicity and following the spelling convention of the then German-language publications, the German spellings are utilized and the Czech names are mentioned only once when they first appear. I ask my Czech colleagues for their understanding.
Ursula Prokop, 2005
Nearly fifteen years have passed since this book was first published in Vienna. It has helped that Groag has gained a certain degree of fame, at least in the professional world. I have lectured several times at various symposiums on Groag. In 2009, a very beautiful biography of Jacqueline Groag was published in England, which was able to build on my work and highlight its significance for English postwar design. In 2012, on the occasion of the eighty-year anniversary of the Vienna Werkbundsiedlung, the Wien Museum held the exhibition Werkbundsiedlung Wien, 1932: A Manifesto of New Living. At the opening I had the honor to meet the descendants of Stefan and Eva Schanzer, who owned House No. 45 in the Werkbundsiedlung, which was built by Jacques Groag. The Schanzer family was exiled from Austria in 1938, and today the descendants live in the United States. Ms. Carrie Paterson, the publisher of DoppelHouse Press, is a granddaughter of Stefan Schanzer, thus closing the circle to Jacques Groag. It is a pleasure for me that she is bringing out this book in the English edition.
Vienna, 2018
1 Vladimir Šlapeta, “Paul Engelmann und Jacques Groag, die Olmützer Schüler von Adolf Loos” (Paul Engelmann and Jacques Groag, The Olmütz Students of Adolf Loos) in: Bauwelt (Building World) 1978, no. 40, p. 1494 et seq., henceforth quoted as Šlapeta 1978.
2 Charlotte Benton, “Jacques Groag 1892–1962,” in: A Different World, Émigré Architects in Britain 1928–1958 (cat.), London 1995, p. 160.
3 Paul Widjeveld, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Architekt (Ludwig Wittgenstein, Architect), Amsterdam 1994, henceforth quoted as Wijdeveld.
4 Geoffrey Rayner / Richard Chamberlain / Annamarie Stapleton, Jacqueline Groag, Textile and Pattern Design: Wiener Werkstätte to American Modern, Woodbridge / Suffolk: Antique Collectors' Club, 2009.