Vally Wieselthier, the Wiener Werkstätte, and Transatlantic Design

Transatlantic Modernism, 1900–1945: Vally Wieselthier, the Wiener Werkstätte, and Design takes the pioneering ceramic artist Vally Wieselthier and the Wiener Werkstätte as points of departure to explore transatlantic exchanges between Vienna and the United States. This day-long program brings together international scholars to examine pivotal contributions to modern art and design in the early twentieth century—many of them made by Jewish women affiliated with the Wiener Werkstätte in interwar Vienna.

Organized on the occasion of two exhibitions, the recent Vally Wieselthier: Sculpting Modernism at the Austrian Cultural Forum New York and the forthcoming exhibition on the women of the Wiener Werkstätte opening at the Jewish Museum in July 2026, speakers will illuminate the unique, often progressive, context in which these artists operated.

International scholars will provide fresh perspectives on the life and work of Austrian-American ceramic sculptor Vally (Valerie) Wieselthier (1895-1945), the most successful member of the Wiener Werkstätte to establish a career in the United States. Participants will investigate dialogues in transatlantic modernism and the image of the new woman in Wieselthier’s work and offer feminist readings of the work of the artist and her contemporaries. Further presentations will also explore the distinctive circumstances and conditions in Vienna at the start of the 20th century which saw women in particular flourish as agents of reform. Special attention will be given to Jewish women whose work as artists, designers, and patrons were instrumental to the construction of new modernisms in this period.

This program takes place in the Segal Theater, First Floor. Full program details to follow.

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