Richard Rohac

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Richard Rohac (* 1906 ; † 1956 in Vienna ) was an Austrian designer and metalworker.

Life

Rohac began and completed his training at the Hagenauer workshop in Vienna as a teenager and stayed with the workshop for another nine years before opening his own metal shop in 1932.

Rohac's career was interrupted by military service and a period of internment in Greece. Upon his return to Vienna, he reopened his workshop and began making the kinds of household items that were lost or destroyed during the bombing of the war. Products from this period are likely to be labeled “ROHAC WIEN”.

When a market for decorative objects re-emerged, Rohac devoted his talent to designing and producing busts and sculptures, and everything from desk and smoking accessories to corkscrews and bookends to pretzel holders and candle holders. He specialized in exotic - in the 1950s - African and Asian figures and jungle animals. His maker's mark "R zurückwärts / R vorwärts" comes from this time and appears on objects that were sold by the export company Gebr. Gödde.

Rohac's work was featured in an American newsreel on Austrian handicrafts; one of his African busts was a state gift from Austria to the President of Mexico.

Rohac died in Vienna in 1956.

Identity controversy

Richard Rohac was practically unknown outside of Austria during his lifetime. His work was sold internationally, only with his logo (and “Made in Austria”) to identify its source, a common practice at the time. This anonymity led to Rohac's design work being mistakenly attributed to someone else with the same initials. In his reference work Art Deco Sculpture & Metalware, published in 1996, Alfred W. Edward presented eleven color plates from Rohac's work entitled “Rena Rosenthal touchmark”. This "touchmark" was actually Richard Rohac's trademark (mirrored capital R in a rectangle), which Edward illustrated on page 67 of his book.

Despite the truth documented in multiple sources, confusion persists in the antiquing world. The 1999 reference work The Ultimate Corkscrew Book by Donald A. Bull contains photographs of two figural corkscrews, a cat and a dog, and describes the brand as "R backwards / R forwards". Ten years later, in Figural Corkscrews , Bull depicts the same two items and four others labeled "with the trademark of Richard Rohac". The erroneous attribution is mentioned in Corkscrews (2009). The art historian and journalist Olga Kronsteiner explicitly contradicted the attribution of Rena Rosenthal in her 2011 exhibition directory.

literature

  • Donald A. Bull: Figural Corkscrews . Schiffer, Atglen 1996, ISBN 978-0-7643-3315-6 .
  • Alfred W. Edward: Art Deco Sculpture & Metalware . Schiffer, Atglen 1996, ISBN 0-88740-994-6 .
  • Sal Robinson, Wayne Meadows: Austrian Figural Corkscrew Design: Auböck ∙ Bosse ∙ Hagenauer ∙ Rohac . Kitsilano Cellars, Vancouver 2015, ISBN 978-0-9689294-1-4 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sal Robinson, Wayne Meadows: Austrian Figural Corkscrew Design: Auböck ∙ Bosse ∙ Hagenauer ∙ Rohac . Kitsilano Cellars, Vancouver 2015, ISBN 978-0-9689294-1-4 .
  2. ↑ Gebr. Gödde, Modern Vienna Bronzes; Catalog No. 4, Vienna 1954
  3. ↑ Peter Skopp: RR: Not Rena, but Richard - artist's signature or import mark? . In: Der Krätzer , No. 23, September 2006, and No. 24, February 2007.
  4. ↑ Ronald Hagenauer: The Workshop Hagenauer Wien - wHw. Collectables Trader 91 (December 2009 - March 2010) and 92 (March - May 2010)
  5. ^ Donald A. Bull: The Ultimate Corkscrew Book . Atglen, 1999, ISBN 0-7643-0701-0 .
  6. ↑ Donald S. Bull: Figural Corkscrews , Atglen, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7643-3315-6 .
  7. ^ Frank Ellis, Barbara Ellis: Corkscrews . Crowood, Ramsbury 2009, ISBN 978-1-84797-113-5 .
  8. ↑ Olga Kronsteiner: Hagenauer, Wiener Moderne und neue Sachlichkeit . Wagner: Werk Museum, Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-200-02261-4 .
personal data
SURNAME Rohac, Richard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian designer and metalworker
DATE OF BIRTH 1906
DATE OF DEATH 1956
Place of death Vienna