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News Release
Contact: Connie Rhoton, NIU School of Art
(815) 753-1474
October 7, 2003
NIU School of Art guest speaker to focus
on fabric, fashions of Vienna Workshops
DeKalb — Northern Illinois University, the NIU School of Art and the Elizabeth Allen Lecture Series are pleased to announce Angela Völker as the first lecturer for 2003-2004.
Völker, curator of textiles at the Museum of Applied Art in Vienna, will speak at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 16, in Room 100 of the Art Building on the NIU campus in DeKalb. Her lecture is titled, “Beauty’s Glory: The Wiener Werkstätte’s Fate Between Artistic Success and Commercial Failure.”
The Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops), founded in 1903 and closed down in 1932, was a collaborative company of artists and craftsmen who together produced highly innovative designs but who did not enjoy much financial success.
Josef Hoffman and Kolo Moser, as well as Dagobert Peche and Maria Likarz, were gifted artists of their time who designed silverware as well as ceramics. They were graphic designers as well as designers for fabrics, laces and fashion.
Völker, an expert on textiles, will focus on the fabric and fashion departments of the Wiener Werkstätte in her talk. It coincides with the November opening of the exhibition, “Der Preis der Schönheit,” at the Museum fur angewandte Kunst in Wien, which marks the 100-year anniversary of the founding of the Wiener Werkstätte.
Elizabeth Plotnick (nee Allen), who holds a bachelor’s degree in art from NIU, funded the Elizabeth Allen Visiting Art Scholars Endowment to share her ideals regarding the value of the study of art history and to broaden and raise the level of scholarship to which NIU students and faculty are regularly exposed.
Contact Connie Rhoton at (815) 753-1474 or crhoton@niu.edu for more information.
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