Kolo Moser - A Painter Who Excelled As a Graphic Designer
Koloman Moser (1868-1918) was one of the most versatile and influential artists, especially graphic designers of his time. He was accepted to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna at 17 years old and studied there for about seven years. Then, he continued his pursuit of knowledge at the Austrian Museum for Art and Industry until he became a teacher at the Vienna School of Applied Arts. He was soon promoted to the position of professor, which he occupied until his death of throat cancer.
* Kolo Moser, as he started introducing himself in 1888, worked as an illustrator and designer for most of his life, although he was a trained painter and remained faithful to painting (portraits and landscapes) since the very end of his career. His ability to fuse knowledge from seemingly different areas is obvious in the oil painting of the Frog King above, with a symbolic shining yellow (golden) ball in the dark setting and a cute illustration of the same scene for the ex libris, created for Adele Bloch (1881-1925), presented below. Despite changes in style throughout his creative era, bold use of colors remained his signature sign.
* Moser designed bookplates, clothes, furniture, glassware, interiors, jewelry, leather, silverware, stained glass, and even toys. He created banknotes, calendars, postcards, and stamps. Before he died, he also designed theatre stages. His versatility was comparable to another Art Nouveau-influenced artist who focused on colors: Edmund Dulac (1882-1953). Kolo Moser's designs are still present and valued in architecture, graphics, and tapestries. Part of his portfolio of graphic designs for fabrics, tapestries, and wallpapers was published in Die Quelle (The Source) in three volumes with Carl Otto Czeschka (1878-1960) and Martin Gerlach (1846-1918) between 1900 and 1902. He was a leading designer for the art journal Ver Sacrum (Sacred Spring) from 1898 to 1903.
* In 1905, he married his ex-student Editha (Ditha) Mautner von Markhof, an accomplished Jugendstil artist and a heiress of a wealthy industrial family. They had two children together and remained together until his death. Her most typical creations were calendars and playing (including tarot) cards. After Koloman's death, she stopped creating, and most of her work was lost.
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