It’s why the antiques that do feature are combined with Adam Bray’s ‘Brown Paper Stripe’ wallpaper and bespoke tufted rugs by Roger Oates, used as wallhangings, in such a manner that sees Secessionist shapes re-imagined in contemporary colours. 'Embassy' beechwood and cane loungers by Jan Bočan for Ton (available at Sigmar) stnad next to a Rose Uniacke red leather floor lamp. But it is the shapes that are again in fashion, as well as the ideals. In the Secessionist magazine, Ver Sacrum (Sacred Spring) the idea was mooted that the ordinary citizen should have ‘a harmoniously furnished interior’ – the idea being that it wouldn’t just be a unity of the arts, but a unity of art and life, which is not at all dissimilar to what we expect from our interiors now. At the Secession Building, designed by Joseph Olbrich, they presented the works of architects, painters, sculptors and craftsmen together as one harmonious whole. As with the Arts and Crafts movement in Britain, they were determined to dispel the heaviness, fuss and over-ornamentation that was such a feature of industrially produced home furnishings, to break with Art Nouveau, and to challenge the hierarchy of supposed major and minor arts. The Vienna Secession was formed in 1897 by a group of Austrian artists, sculptors and architects, among them Josef Hoffman, Koloman Moser, Otto Wagner and Gustav Klimt, who had resigned from the Association of Austrian artists in protest against its support for the more traditional styles. It was the home of the great psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, and the musicians Arnold Schoenberg and Gustav Mahler. Turn of the century Vienna – a period recently brought alive again by Edmund de Waal in his family biography The Hare with Amber Eyes, and by Tom Stoppard in his latest play Leopoldstadt (which is still playing in the West End) was the centre of international culture and site of sweeping intellectual innovations in music, philosophy, economics, and the arts.
“Secessionism is definitely having a very vogue-ish moment,” confirms Adam.Ī 'Ropley Occasional Table' from And Objects holds 'Spiral Ice Cream Sundae' glasses by &Klevering. The clean, clear modern lines of the style, evocative of the contours of nature and coupled with an imperturbable order – a look that Jermaine Gallacher describes as “refined, and quietly decadent” – are what inspired House & Garden’s Decoration Editor Ruth Sleighthome’s shoot in the November issue ‘Viennese Whirl’ features antiques mixed with contemporary designs by Jermaine, Adam Bray, Fred Rigby, and more. A joint project between the legendary dealer Yves Macaux, whose focus has never swerved from fin de siècle Vienna, and the Bond Street-based gallery Richard Nagy which specialises in the work of Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, it is a perfectly presented micro-exhibition of the furniture, art and decorative elements of the time. Should you find yourself visiting Frieze Masters this weekend (and do go, if you’re in town) you’ll see – almost immediately on entering – a stand devoted to the arts of the Viennese Secessionists.
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