Gerdago

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Gerdago , also Gerda Gottschlich , Gerda Gottstein , Gerda Irro , Gerda Iro (born August 28, 1906 in Vienna , † January 20, 2004 in Vienna) was an Austrian costume designer .

Life

Signature Gerdago .

Born Gerda Gottstein, she received her artistic training in Berlin in 1927 and in Paris in 1928/29 and worked as an assistant to the architect Oskar Strnad .

Between 1925 and 1930, Gottstein designed numerous statuettes in the Art Deco style . Her figures in primarily dramatic postures wear futuristic costumes with often eccentric headgear and are mostly decorated with colorful, cold-lacquered enamel and richly gilded. The Viennese foundry Artur Rubinstein manufactured the objects signed with Gerdago according to Gottstein's drawings and drafts.

From 1931 to 1934 she was involved in furnishing revues. She designed the clothes for the “Femina” stage. Here she was discovered by the director Willi Forst , who hired her as a costume designer for his early productions. She turned out to be a specialist in lavish period films such as the Schubert biography Leise flehen mein Lieder or the operetta film Masquerade , for which she tailored Paula Wessely a seductive dress in her film debut.

The annexation of Austria in 1938 severely restricted the development opportunities of the Jew Gerda Iro-Gottstein in 1938 “for racial reasons”; only her marriage to a gentile saved her from worse. Her parents, however, were taken to the Theresienstadt concentration camp . Her father Karl Gottstein died here on January 11, 1943; Gerda's mother Ilse Margot Gottstein was deported to Auschwitz on May 15, 1944, where she gave her life in the gas chamber.

After the Second World War she was able to practice her profession again at the Vienna Citizens' Theater ; from 1947 also in post-war films. With her designs of magnificent dresses and uniforms that always fit perfectly, she played a major role in successes such as the Sissi trilogy. From 1955 to 1980 Gerdago, who always remained in the background personally, was responsible for all operettas at the Raimund Theater in Vienna as a costume designer .

After her death in January 2004, she was buried in the Döblinger Friedhof in Vienna.

Filmography (selection)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eric Knowles : Art Deco. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2014. ISBN 0-74781-520-8 , p. 159.
  2. ^ Alberto Shayo : Statuettes art deco period. Antique Collectors Club Art Books, 2016. ISBN 1-85149-824-9 . P. 93.
personal data
SURNAME Gerdago
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gottstein, Gerda (maiden name); Gottschlich, Gerda; Irro, Gerda; Iro, Gerda
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian costume designer
DATE OF BIRTH August 28, 1906
PLACE OF BIRTH Vienna , Austria-Hungary
DATE OF DEATH January 20, 2004
Place of death Vienna , Austria