Introduction 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design Painting and graphic art Professional articles and publications Bibliography Monographs, catalogs, and articles Unpublished typescripts and manuscripts Periodicals – Jacques Groag Periodicals – Jacqueline Groag Archives and private sources

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?– Fiona McCarthy/Patrick Nugents, Eye for Industry, Royal Designers 1936–1986

The oeuvre of Jacques and Jaqueline Groag in architecture, interior architecture and textile design is of superb artistic quality. Ursula Prokop establishes and illuminates its roots in the 19th/early 20th century Viennese design tradition and its de facto connections with Viennese Modernism (Adolf Loos; Austrian Werkbund), as well as post-World War II British modernism. Thoroughly researched, objectively written, her book on the Groag couple is of serious interest to any student of 20th century modernist architecture and design and should, and will, be part of every academic or museum art historical library. The book also documents another case of the terrible disruption of European cultural continuity, especially concerning Jewish artists and intellectuals, by Nazism and the Third Reich. The English language edition improves on the number and quality of documentary illustrations available in the German, and above all, it makes this important book accessible to a worldwide public of architects, designers, scholars and others interested in 20th century modernist architecture and design within its cultural context. I strongly acclaim the publication of this DoppelHouse Press book. – Paul Wijdeveld, author of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Architect

Pre-pub finished review copies sent to select bookstores and reviewers DRCs on Edelweiss Tailored campaign to academic and museum audiences Social media campaign Excerpt on The Nomadic Journalollaboration 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)

The architect and designer couple Jacques and Jacqueline Groag were two artists among the many who worked in Vienna during the interwar period. Despite their significant contributions to the artistic and cultural life of those years, they are largely forgotten in Austria today. As part of the group that formed around Adolf Loos, Josef Hoffmann, and Josef Frank, the Groags were members of a small avant-garde that prevented post World War I Vienna from slipping into provinciality after World War I. In Austria’s increasingly cloistered postwar cultural climate, it was this group in particular who kept contact with international modernity alive. This period, however, ended with the displacement of mostly Jewish artists and intellectuals in 1938 by National Socialism – a fate shared by the Groags. The tragic life of Jacques Groag and his wife Hilde Blumberger, who would only later call herself Jacqueline Groag, as well as the disenfranchisement and annihilation of the Austrian Jews signified the partial obliteration of Austrian cultural identity – and is thus a significant story in Austrian history. 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.