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# "Modernity and Opulence: Women of the Wiener Werkstätte" at the Jewish Museum
- URL: https://hyperallergic.com/modernity-and-opulence-women-of-the-wiener-werkstatte-at-the-jewish-museum/
- Published: 2026-09-22T15:06:35.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-22T15:06:34.000Z
- Description: The exhibition illuminates the role that women played as artists, designers, and tastemakers shaping modernist aesthetics in early 20th-century Vienna.
- Author: Jewish Museum
- Tags: Announcement, Exhibition Announcement, Jewish Museum, Sponsored

On view from July 17 through November 15, 2026, and presented in cooperation with the MAK – Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna, [*Modernity and Opulence: Women of the Wiener Werkstätte*](https://bit.ly/4h8hSoX?ref=hyperallergic.com)highlights how women played an underrecognized and yet central role in the workshop, focusing on the many Jewish women who worked as designers and artists, along with those who supported their efforts as patrons. Featuring a wide-ranging selection of media including fashion, ceramics, graphic design, decorative arts, and painting, the exhibition reveals the breadth and depth of these women’s contributions and the ways in which they shaped modernist design languages through the platform of the Wiener Werkstätte.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2026/09/wieselthier_Ma--dchenkopf_300dpi-Facebook_Instagram---3000px-W--72dpi--jpg-1.jpg)

Vally Wieselthier, **Head of a woman, model 511*, 1928\. Red pottery, polychrome glaze, height: 9 5/8 in. (24.5 cm). © Galerie bei der Albertina-Zetter

Active from 1903 to 1932, the Wiener Werkstätte was founded by architect Josef Hoffmann, artist Koloman Moser, and industrialist art collector Fritz Waerndorfer as a multidisciplinary collective and commercial enterprise that embraced the synthesis of art and life (*gesamtkunstwerk*) as an essential condition of modern living. The establishment of the Werkstätte, which designed, produced, and sold high-quality goods, coincided in mutually supportive ways with the burgeoning economic opportunities available to women in Vienna during this same period.

With more than 200 objects by some 30 Jewish women artists on view, the exhibition is organized thematically to reveal the extraordinary range and technical prowess of the women of the Wiener Werkstätte across mediums. A special emphasis is placed on Vally Wieselthier and Felice Rix-Ueno, whose prolific work in ceramics and textile design, respectively, has had lasting influence on these disciplines. 

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2026/09/WWS-595_5-Facebook_Instagram---3000px-W--72dpi--jpg-1.jpg)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2026/09/_DSF8505-1-Facebook_Instagram---3000px-W--72dpi--jpg-1.jpg)

Left: Felice Rix-Ueno, **Purpurnelke* (textile sample), August 1924\. Printed plainweave silk, 16 1/8 × 15 15/16 in. (41 × 40.5 cm). MAK – Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna. Donation, 1955, WWS 595\. Photo: © MAK/Branislav Djordjevic; Right: **Installation view of Modernity and Opulence: Women of the Wiener Werkstätte* at the Jewish Museum, NY, July 17– November 15, 2026\. Photo by Kris Graves Projects / Julian CaleroRight: Installation view of "Modernity and Opulence: Women of the Wiener Werkstätte" at the Jewish Museum, NY, July 17– November 15, 2026\. Photo by Kris Graves Projects / Julian Calero

*Modernity and Opulence* also illustrates the collective’s alignment with progressive notions of reform and burgeoning feminist ideals, as women fought for increased access to education, economic opportunity, and universal suffrage. It reveals the reach these artists had beyond Vienna, as seen during the 1925 Paris International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, which brought work by Wieselthier, Rix-Ueno, Lotte Calm, and Mizi Friedmann-Otten, among others, to the world stage. The Werkstätte’s relationship with Hollywood is explored through the inclusion of films such as *The Kiss* (1929), starring Greta Garbo; *Five and Ten* (1931), starring Marion Davies; and *Enemies of Women* (1923), all of which featured Werkstätte ceramics.

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/51/f8/51f871d8-b6be-4a73-b958-0ca4fff0110a/content/images/2026/09/Kiss_1929_a-Facebook_Instagram---3000px-W--72dpi--jpg.jpeg)

Still from **The Kiss*, 1929, directed by Jacques Feyder. Shown from left: Anders Randolph, Greta Garbo. Courtesy MGM / Photofest. © MGM

Finally, the exhibition demonstrates how women clients, including the noted socialite and arts patron Adele Bloch-Bauer and the art critic and writer Berta Zuckerkandl, commissioned furniture and interiors, wore Werkstätte fashions, and used stationery designed by the Werkstätte — promoting its vision and embodying the spirit of *gesamtkunstwerk*. 

Learn more at [TheJewishMuseum.org](https://bit.ly/4h8hSoX?ref=hyperallergic.com).