Designer Biography

Josef Hoffmann

Born: 1870

Died: 1956

See items in our stock by Josef Hoffmann

Hoffmann studied architecture in Munich and Vienna, where he was briefly a pupil of Otto Wagner. In 1897 he joined the Vienna Secession, and designed the Ver Sacrum room at the first Secession exhibition in 1898. The elongated rectilinear quality of Hoffmann's designs owed much to Mackintosh. Hoffmann visited England in the company of Koloman Moser in 1903 and, inspired by Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft and with the backing of Fritz Warndorfer, they started the Wiener Werkstatte. Hoffmann designed silver and jewellery, bentwood furniture and glass for the Lobmeyer firm. He was professor of architecture at the Vienna School of Applied Arts until 1941, and his work was widely illustrated. He was associated with, among others, J. M. Olbrich, K. Moser, G. Klimt, O. Prutscher and D. Peche.