A Collection of Sculptures by the Werkstätten Hagenauer Up For Sale on 1stDibs

This Thursday, November 20th a collection of 40 sculptures created by the Werkstätten Hagenauer from the 1920s-1950s will be sold on 1stdibs.com by the Los Angeles-based antiques shop Off the Wall.

Werkstätten Hagenauer was founded in 1898 in Vienna, Austria by Carl Hagenauer. In this workshop he made metalware that he designed himself and expanded to produce the designs of other artisans, eventually he was also making the metalware for Josef Hoffman and Otto Prutscher. His son, Karl, attended Vienna’s Kunstgewerbeschule and trained under Hoffman. In 1919, Karl joined the family business and invested the company’s resources in producing a variety of domestic accessories; he also built a furniture workshop and most famously the French designers Rene Coulon and Jacques Adnet collaborated with the Werkstätten Hagenauer on a small line of tempered glass furniture in 1932. Although it survived the war, the company closed its doors in 1956.

Today the Werkstätten Hagenauer is most frequently associated with sculptures of streamlined graceful beauties. According to design historian Laura Schneider, “Hagenauer was the pivotal link between the Art Deco and Modern Art movements. The designs were very influential on future artists, as the brothers demonstrated the streamlining principles found in furniture, architecture, and decorative designs of the day but applied them to human and animal forms.”