Vienna Women's Academy

The Vienna Women's Academy , originally called the Art School for Women and Girls , was an artistic educational institution for women in Vienna founded in 1897 .

The painter Olga Prager (1872–1930) suggested the establishment of a public art school for women at a time when women who wanted to train in painting, graphics or sculpture were still forced to take private lessons. Rosa Mayreder and Tina Blau were co-initiators . On December 1, 1897, the first training class was opened, headed by Prager's teacher Adalbert Seligmann . The club studios were initially located in Vienna 1, Stubenring 12, Bäckerstraße 1, Bibergasse 8 and Stubenring 16.

Between 1900 and 1910 Adolf Boehm taught at the school. From 1907 the plastic class was headed by Richard Kauffungen .

The school flourished quickly and was able to offer academic classes after the First World War. Well-known teachers included Rudolf Jettmar , Josef Stoitzner and Ludwig Michalek . The main teachers were taken on as professors in the civil service around 1920. In 1926 the association was renamed the Vienna Women's Academy and School for Free and Applied Arts . The school, which is now in the 3rd district of Landstrasse (Siegelgasse 2-4), had around 300 pupils and 17 teachers around 1930.

After being appointed professor in 1927, Heinrich Zita was appointed professor of sculpture in succession to Richard Kauffungen, and from 1932 to 1938 he was also the director.

During the Nazi era, the private school was taken over by the Vienna municipality in 1939 and the school's purpose was reoriented towards an art and fashion school in the city of Vienna . The building was destroyed by a bomb at the end of the war. The Vienna Fashion School, founded in 1946 in Schloss Hetzendorf, is a kind of continuation of the Vienna Women's Academy.

literature

Georg Schörner (Ed.): Austrian realism using the example of an artist's life. Heinrich Zita: The sculptor and his time. Vienna 1987

Web links

Ariadne on the founder Olga Prager
Architect's lexicon about Viktor Weixler, link between women's academy and fashion school
An art of her own. Re-inventing "Frauenkunst" in the female academies and artist leagues of late imperial and first-republic Austria 1900 - 1930. Diss. Phil. Georgetown University , Washington DC 2010, by Megan Marie Brandow-Faller

Individual evidence

↑ see note from Alexandra Smetana: Saxl-Deutsch, Marianne . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 101, de Gruyter, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-11-023267-7 , p. 283.
↑ Georg Schörner (Ed.), Austrian Realism using the Example of an Artist's Life - Heinrich Zita, The Sculptor and His Time, Vienna 1987, page 873
↑ Cf. Rathauskorrespondenz, message from April 16, 1947: "The fashion school of the City of Vienna, which emerged from the former women's academy, was housed in the third district in Siegelgasse in the first years of the war. After the building was destroyed in a bombing, had to be taught in temporary accommodation for a few years. Now it has been possible to get the Hetzendorf Castle for the school. "

[1] see note from Alexandra Smetana: Saxl-Deutsch, Marianne . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 101, de Gruyter, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-11-023267-7 , p. 283.

[2] Georg Schörner (Ed.), Austrian Realism using the Example of an Artist's Life - Heinrich Zita, The Sculptor and His Time, Vienna 1987, page 873

[3] Cf. Rathauskorrespondenz, message from April 16, 1947: "The fashion school of the City of Vienna, which emerged from the former women's academy, was housed in the third district in Siegelgasse in the first years of the war. After the building was destroyed in a bombing, had to be taught in temporary accommodation for a few years. Now it has been possible to get the Hetzendorf Castle for the school. "