Signet of the Wiener Werkstätte, c. 1903

The painter Koloman Moser (1868–1918), who was educated at the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts and was a co-founder of the Wiener Werkstätte (1903–1932), is famed as a multi-talented designer of objects of daily use. His avant-garde self-conception was shaped at a time when Vienna as the capital of the monarchy was grasped by entrepreneurial zeal and experienced a surge of innovation. The design of signets for businesses and institutions was an important part of the work of graphic designers in the late 19th century. Most of these visual marks were characterized by an opulence of imagination. Moser’s work is remarkable for its strict reduction to geometric shapes and its sophisticated inflection and variation of individual elements, frequently resulting in distinct and memorable graphic solutions created through shifting, overlapping and a lyrical interplay of proportions. Moser thus set new standards in graphic design.

MH, 2023