Head, 1970/1975

This metal object is exemplary of the highly reduced figural design vocabulary employed by the sculptor and designer Franz Hagenauer (1906–1986). After the death of his brother Karl in 1956, the artist took over the Werkstätten Hagenauer, one of the most important metal workshops in Austria, acting as its director until 1986. As the workshop’s creative head, Hagenauer had explored the traces of Amedeo Modigliani (1884–1920) and Constantin Brâncuși (1876–1957) in Paris already in the 1920s, and created works influenced by the German Bauhaus movement and international Art Deco in equal measure. In Hagenauer’s oeuvre, the lines between artistic work and artisan craftwork were often blurred. A student of Anton Hanak’s (1875–1934), the artist did not continue his teacher’s Expressionist style but rather simplified his sculptures so consistently that the only thing left was often merely the basic form shaped by the blow of the hammer. Following on from his interwar designs, this head was likely created in the 1970s, a creative period in which Hagenauer continued his reduced style and experimented with new techniques, including enamel.

MR, 2021