Friedl Dicker-Brandeis: Works from the Collection of the University of Applied Arts Vienna

352 Pages·2023·39.633 MB·English

by  Stefanie Kitzberger, Cosima Rainer, Linda Schädler

Friedl Dicker-Brandeis

Friedl Dicker-Brandeis
Works from the Collection
of the University of Applied Arts Vienna
Stefanie Kitzberger, Cosima Rainer,
and Linda Schädler (Eds.)
Contents
6 Greeting Andrea Mayer
7 Greeting Teresa Indjein
8 Foreword Gerald Bast, Eva Maria Stadler
9 Foreword Linda Schädler
11 Whatever You See Could Just as Well Have Been Otherwise
An Introduction to This Volume
Stefanie Kitzberger and Cosima Rainer
19 Space Loops
Political Dimensions of Layering, Interweaving,
and Intertwining in Friedl Dicker-Brandeis’s Work in the
Context of European Avant-Gardes
Daniela Stöppel
46 Seated and Floating Nude Noemi Scherrer
50 Reclining Figures, Seated Figures, Nudes Hamida Sivac

69 The Unbinding Interior of Friedl Dicker
Mark Wigley
92 Two Handbags, Leather Pattern, and a Design Draft
for a Handbag Laura Egger-Karlegger
98 Textiles—Eleven Fabric Samples, Scarf, and Tapestry
Laura Egger-Karlegger
110 Designs for the Theater Eva Marie Klimpel
118 Cardboard, Painted on Both Sides: Hydrangea / Figures
Laura Egger-Karlegger
124 Flirting Couples Hamida Sivac
128 Seated Figures with Wings Hamida Sivac
133 Between Media—
Registering Practices of Knowing
Julie M. Johnson
152 The Interrogation Hamida Sivac
156 A Negative and a Positive Variation of the Same Form
Held by a Force Field, Wafted Over by a Ribbon Hamida Sivac
160 Compositions with Abstract Figures Hamida Sivac
164 Genre Scenes—Landscapes, Still Life, and a Cat—
Twelve Drawings Laura Egger-Karlegger
177 Art in the Face of Fascism
On the Political in the Work of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis
around 1930 to 1942
Stefanie Kitzberger
200 Photo Collages Hamida Sivac
212 Fuchs Learns Spanish Hamida Sivac
216 Dark Lithographs Christian Scherrer
225 Growing through Art
Friedl Dicker-Brandeis and Her Work with Children in Context
Bernadette Reinhold
244 Invitations to the 1st and the 8th Bauhaus Evening Hamida Sivac
252 Composition with Musical Instruments Hamida Sivac
258 Seven Portraits Laura Egger-Karlegger
266 Woman with Headscarf Noemi Scherrer
271 The Psychology of Art
Form and Color in the Work of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis
Robin Rehm
292 Studies of Anna Selbdritt Hamida Sivac
298 A Composition with Spiral and a Red Demon Hamida Sivac
303 Strategies of Flexibility in Interior Designs
by Friedl Dicker and Franz Singer
The One-Room Hans Heller Apartment
Katharina Hövelmann
333 List of Works
341 Bibliography
344 Biography Friedl Dicker-Brandeis
345 Exhibitions, Theatrical Productions,
Song Evenings, Lectures
348 Biographies
350 Imprint
Greeting
Friedl Dicker-Brandeis was a multi-faceted artist
and a critical political spirit with strong social
commitments. The significance of her artistic work
and her influence on Austrian art history is now
in the process of being reassessed. It is to the credit
of all those involved in this project that Friedl
Dicker-Brandeis’s artistic career has been saved from
oblivion, that she has been allowed to step outside
of the shadow of her male colleagues, and that she
has been furnished with a lasting place in the history
of Viennese Modernism.
Andrea Mayer
Secretary of State for Arts and Culture
6
Greeting
Friederike «Friedl» Dicker-Brandeis can undoubtedly
be called an artistic multi-talent. Whether as a painter,
stage designer, architect, or art teacher, she succeeded at
all levels. Her artistic work, which was brought to an
end by the National Socialist regime in such a tragic way
and far too soon, is rightly regarded as pioneering for future
generations. Especially in the artistic professions and
in architecture, the impact of her groundbreaking feminist
work continues to be felt today.
Teresa Indjein
Ambassador, Head of the Section for International
Cultural Affairs at the Federal Ministry for European
and International Affairs
7
Foreword
With over two hundred drawings, sketches, and watercolors, as well as designs for
furniture, toys, textiles, and interior decor, the institute Collection and Archive of the
University of Applied Arts Vienna possesses in the work of the extraordinary artist
and designer Friedl Dicker-Brandeis not only a treasure trove but also a testament to
one of the most important periods of the twentieth century: one in which no less was
at stake than the utopian dream of a new society. The profound changes that took effect
in the wake of the First World War gave rise to a rethinking of the role of the family,
of sex and gender, the question of housing and of work—in short, how to shape and
organize life. Friedl Dicker-Brandeis commanded an imagination powerful enough to
contribute to this transformation of society in the realm of politics as well as in the
realm of aesthetics. She opposed the blatant injustice of social life with just as much
commitment as she did the monstrous machinations of the rising fascism of the bour-
geoisie. With a merciless gaze, Dicker-Brandeis deconstructed the self-serving inter-
ests of the National Socialists and countered their propagandistic aesthetics with her
insistence on a human and a social emancipation that saw the individual as always
involved in a social group.
Through an international array of exhibitions in Warsaw, Linz, Zurich and Vienna,
Friedl Dicker-Brandeis is finally being introduced to a larger audience.
With this book and the exhibition Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. Werkstätten bildender
Kunst [Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. Workshops for Visual Art], which was on view in fall
2022 at the University Gallery of the University of Applied Arts Vienna in the Heiligen-
kreuzerhof and in spring 2023 at the Graphische Sammlung eth Zürich, our aim of
lending contemporary relevance to the important work of this outstanding artist is
coming to fruition. In the increasingly posthuman and postsocial environment, marked
more by conflicts over individual lives than by those over the social landscape, it seems
particularly urgent to give space to the imagination of the social.
More than ever, it is important to communicate to students of the University
of Applied Arts Vienna as well as to an international audience not only the trust in the
power of art, for which Friedl Dicker-Brandeis stood; but also and alongside it, the
responsibility of art toward society.
Gerald Bast
Rector, University of Applied Arts Vienna
Eva Maria Stadler
Vice-Rector and Professor of Art and Knowledge
Transfer, University of Applied Arts Vienna
8
Foreword
For Switzerland, this is a discovery: here, the work of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis
(1898–1944) has never before been honored with a solo exhibition. It is true that there
was a Viennese collaboration with the Swiss Architecture Museum Basel in 1989/90—
but at the time Dicker-Brandeis was presented alongside her temporary atelier partner
Franz Singer, and the focus was then on the Bauhaus period. The present collabora-
tion with the institute Collection and Archive of the University of Applied Arts Vienna
is thus the perfect moment to introduce this important Austrian artist to Switzerland
thoroughly for the first time. Without entirely disregarding the tragic circumstances of
her life, our aim in the exhibition is to center on the quality of her work and the variety
of fields in which her activities took place.
The Graphische Sammlung eth Zürich itself does not possess any works by
this multiply-gifted artist. It is therefore a fortunate coincidence that Cosima Rainer,
Director of the institute Collection and Archive of the University of Applied Arts
Vienna, contacted us about a cooperation. Her institution boasts an unparalleled port-
folio. It is thanks to this excellent collaboration that a selection of the works will travel
to Zurich following the Dicker-Brandeis exhibition at the University Gallery Heiligen-
kreuzerhof in fall 2022. One important reason that the partnership makes so much
sense is that both of our institutions have a university collection with a close connec-
tion to teaching and research. We have thus planned additional exchange in a seminar
context, as well as an exchange of exhibitions. While Dicker-Brandeis’s work is on its
way to Zurich, Swiss artist Lill Tschudi’s (1911–2004) will likewise be going to Vienna.
Having had a solo exhibition in the Graphische Sammlung eth Zürich in winter 2021/
22, her multifaceted work will be shown at the University Gallery Heiligenkreuzer-
hof in Vienna. Tschudi has often stood in the shadow of art history, even though she
attained great fame with her linocuts in the Anglo-Saxon world during the first half
of the twentieth century.
The success of this cooperation demonstrates how valuable and fruitful institu-
tional exchange can be. We would like to thank Cosima Rainer, the main project
manager, for her openness and constructive collaboration; Stefanie Kitzberger for the
scholarly supervision, especially of the publication; Robert Müller for the co-con-
ception of the exhibition; and Eva Maria Stadler for jumping at the chance to visit the
Graphische Sammlung eth Zürich with her students in the context of a seminar
trip—the conversation is thus already making promising moves beyond the boundaries
of the exhibition opening.
Thanks are also, as always, due to the sponsors of such an ambitious project.
Without their financial support, we would not have been able to realize our plan. We
would like to thank the Dr. Georg and Josi Guggenheim Foundation and Omanut—
Forum for Jewish Art and Culture, as well as those who wish to remain unnamed.
Linda Schädler
Head, Graphische Sammlung eth Zürich
9