Master Art

Designed by: Franz Hagenauer, Vienna, 1977

Executed by: Werkstätte Hagenauer, model no. 1029

Marked: WHW in circle, HAGENAUER WIEN

Nickel-plated brass, excellent original condition

H 45 cm, W 26 cm, D 20 cm

Among the most impressive and best-known works by Professor Franz Hagenauer are his depictions of human heads. These sculptures remain a consistent feature of this important designer’s oeuvre from the mid-1920s until his death in 1986. The artist’s continuous further development and related modifications to his style are clearly reflected in his works. While his early oeuvre still featured elements also shared by contemporary works by Amedeo Modigliani or Constantin Brancusi, Franz Hagenauer started to develop his individual style in the mid-1930s – a completely unique style, which was to remain a hallmark of all his future works.

Hagenauer’s teaching assignment as a professor of creative design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna also inspired his own creativity, with the new impulses clearly reflected in his oeuvre. While his figural objects were initially fully sculptural, he moved to designing almost two-dimensional heads from the end of the 1960s. These heads were also executed in a new technique: a nickel-plated brass plate served as the base, onto which he soldered tubes and other metal elements. Using only a few materials, he thus succeeded by applying only a few sophisticated production steps in creating highly individual art objects of outstanding expressive intensity.  

Sincere thanks to Dr Maria-Luise Jesch, Austrian Museum of Applied Arts Vienna, Hagenauer archive, for this information.