Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. Works from the Collection of the University of Applied Arts Vienna

The work of Friedl Dicker-Brandeis (1898–1944) occupies a key position in the broader history of the Austrian avant-garde while also deepening our understanding of modernism.

Her work covers an impressive range of media and genres in the visual and applied arts. Influenced by her studies at Vienna’s Kunstgewerbeschule (which later became the University of Applied Arts Vienna), the Itten Private School, and the Bauhaus in Weimar, she worked as a painter, stage designer, architect, designer in Vienna and Berlin, in exile, and as a deportee.

This book explores the heterogeneity of Dicker’s work, reconstructs her artistic strategies and references to aesthetic and political discourses from the 1920s to the 1940s, and documents for the first time her works in the collection of the University of Applied Arts Vienna.

• Portrait of her work and collection catalog, dedicated to the artist, designer, and architect Friedl Dicker-Brandeis
• Essays by Julie M. Johnson, Robin Rehm, Daniela Stöppel, and others
• To accompany an exhibition in Vienna and Zurich

Printed with the financial support from the Future Fund of the Republic of Austria, the ERSTE Foundation, the Federal Ministry of the Republic of Austria - European and International Affairs, and the National Fund of the Republic of Austria for the Victims of National Socialism, the Dr. Georg and Josi Guggenheim Foundation, Omanut - Foundation for Jewish Art and Culture, and further foundations, that want to remain anonymous.

Book Presentation and Discussion
Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. Works from the Collection of the University of Applied Arts Vienna, November 22, 2022

In the context of the Vienna Art Week and the exhibition Friedl Dicker-Brandeis. Workshops for Visual Arts (curated by Cosima Rainer, Robert Müller and Stefanie Kitzberger, Universitätsgalerie Heiligenkreuzerhof), Kunstsammlung und Archiv presents the bilingual monograph on the artist.

The publication, edited by Stefanie Kitzberger and Cosima Rainer together with Linda Schädler (Graphische Sammlung ETH Zürich), contains essays by international authors who situate Friedl Dicker-Brandeis' work within social, political, and aesthetic discourses of the 1920s and 1930s, as well as shorter texts by younger researchers who further explore selected works collected at the Angewandte since the early 1980s.

The book presentation will be accompanied by statements by the authors and two panel discussions.

The event was supported by the Future Fund of the Republic of Austria.