Otto Prutscher: Universal Designer of Viennese Modernism

Otto Prutscher (1880-1949)was one of the innovators of Viennese Modernism, an architect and a designer in all applied arts media, as well as an exhibition designer, teacher and member of all the important arts and crafts movements, from the Secession to the Wiener Werkstatte and the Werkbund. The MAK - Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna possesses a comprehensive graphic bequest and many significant objects from Prutscher’s design oeuvre. Selected examples of Prutscher’s creative work document his long-lasting influential role as a designer and artistic adviser for decorative art companies from Johann Loetz to Thonet. The publication conducts an audit of Prutscher’s work as a pacemaker of Viennese modernism - over twenty years since the last show in Vienna and seventy years on from his death.