Otto Prutscher

Born in Vienna in 1880, Otto Prutscher, after having completed his apprenticeship as a carpenter, took up his studies at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts in 1897 attending the drawing and painting class of Franz von Matsch. However, the years from 1899 onwards, when he moved on to Josef Hoffmann‘s architecture class, were decisive for his future artistic development. In the circle of Hoffmann‘s enthusiastic students, he created his first works of applied art while still at art school, in line with the Jugendstil/Art Nouveau concept of Gesamtkunstwerk. In addition to his work as an architect, Otto Prutscher made a name for himself as a designer who was active in a wide range of fields: He was extremely successful in designing furniture, ceramics, textiles, metal and silver work, jewellery and, above all, glass. Until the First World War, he, like Josef Hoffmann, had evolved into a key figure of the modern design movement in Vienna and held a number of influential positions, including professor at the School of Arts and Crafts, founding member of the Austrian Werkbund and advisor to the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry (now MAK). Today, Prutscher is still recognised as one of the most versatile and important artists of Vienna Jugendstil and Wiener Werkstätte. Probably around 1901/02, Prutscher started to cooperate with Bakalowits. Initially, he designed mainly lamps, but also flower tables and vases for the company. From 1906/1907, Bakalowits commissioned Otto Prutscher to design various long-stemmed drinking glasses, carafes and other glass objects, which were executed by Meyr‘s Neffe in clear glass, sometimes coloured overlay or with stained details and cut geometric decoration. As a very versatile artist, who worked with many different materials, Otto Prutscher focused most intensively and over a comparably long period of time on glass. Although his glass designs do not occupy a dominant position among his works in terms of quantity, these objects are of the most outstanding quality, probably occupying the most eminent position in Prutscher‘s oeuvre. In general, glass was regarded as a modern material, which was also employed in architecture in new, innovative ways and used - in the spirit of creating a Gesamtkunstwerk - during Viennese Modernism by many artists including Hoffmann.