Das Porzellanmuseum

THE WOMEN OF THE AUGARTEN PORCELAIN MANUFACTORY

The manufactory´s photo archive contains a large number of historical photos portraying women from the 1920s to the 1960s, casting, glazing, garnishing, painting or modelling porcelain. A  friendly orchestrated togetherness can be felt, and often also a quiet, focused atmosphere. In some periods of the 20th century, the director had banned speaking in the workshops.

As early as 1923, female sculptors and painters were employed at the new manufactory. Their ideas, designs and models were transformed into porcelain with the utmost care by the workers. Success still lies in each and every hand involved in the manufacturing process. Some of the artists had just completed their training at the Vienna School of Applied Arts, others had already established their own workshops, half a century before women were able to take up a profession without the consent of their husbands. Many artists were members of the Austrian Women Artists Association or the Viennese Women´s Art Association and regularly participated in group exhibitions. Ena Rottenberg and Hertha Bucher, for example, showed their work, including objects commissioned by the Augarten Porcelain Manufactory, at the groundbreaking Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes in Paris in 1925. 

The chronicle of women´s rights in Austria shows how novel these opportunities were.

In 1911, the first International Women´s Day took place, and it was not until 1918 that women´s right to vote was established in Austria. In 1919 girls were allowed to attend grammar schools. In 1920 the principle of equality was enshrined in the Austrian Federal Constitution, and in 1925 a department for women´s work was founded in the Vienna Chamber of Labour. Many other important reforms were postponed by politics and ideologies for decades.

Mathilde Jaksch is one of those artists whose sculptural works show a strong presence and the modern self-image of her contemporaries. Her figures are level-headed, with a cryptic wit. They wear short hair and trousers, symbolic of their sense of freedom. Of the artist´s life data, only the year of birth, 1899, has survived. Little else has survived from Ena (Emma) Rottenberg´s (1893-1952) life; her extensive oeuvre is expressive and full of character. The story of Elfriede Teufelhart (c. 1929-2015), who left a legendary design for a tea service to the manufactory´s repertoire, is also lost. She was a contemporary of Ursula Klasmann (born 1930), who, as a courageous pioneer of design had taken the aesthetic helm of the manufactory from 1955 onwards.

The names of many of the manufactory´s female employees have been forgotten. Although particular porcelain shapes, figure models and painted decorations can be attributed to certain artists´names, most of their biographies have not been preserved. It is one of the tasks of the Augarten Porcelain Museum today to make the individual handwriting and point of view of the artists visible who shaped the style and face of production in their time.

Responding to the challenges was important for these women after and in between the wars of the 20th century. In their days, the ceramic craft was initially regarded as unobtrusive and inconspicuous, therefore suitable for women. Artists like Vally Wieselthier (1895-1945) and those already mentioned, but also Hildegarde Goldbach and many others had chosen the challenge. Their artistic legacy tells us of innovation, boldness and resistance to old structures, criticism and doubt. With the astonishingly sparkling, colourful optimism of self-created freedom.

#ChooseTheChallenge is the call of the 110th International Women´s Day 2021. It has many traditions.