The Vienna Workshop, VI

Emma Bacher was also familiar with Richard Teschner (1879–1948) and married him in 1911. Teschner studied in Prague at the Kunstakademie (Academy of the Arts) and in 1900 briefly attended classes at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Vienna. He became wellknown for his puppet-shows, exhibiting his famous “Figurenspiel” (bodies reflected in a mirror), modeled on East-Asian culture. The Marionetten-Buehne (Puppet Theater) is alive today at the Theatermuseum in Vienna, and performances continue in the Teschner “Spiel” tradition. Teschner’s relocation to Vienna in 1909 was intimately connected with the WW. His work there included postcards, sculptures, metal works and book illustration. Free from financial responsibilities through his marriage to Emma Bacher, he joined the Klimt-circle, but did not identify himself with their spirit of revolutionary freedom, which to him seemed rather dogmatic. He remained true to his own style, which is more figurative, with playful ornaments of a grotesque and fantastic subject matter.

Like many other artists, Richard Teschner was multi-talented: a painter-engraver, a costume designer, and lute builder. He worked in different graphic-techniques, such as book illustration, posters, and numerous ex libris. One hundred and nine bookplates were found in his estate. The exlibris for Professor Arnold Epstein (1904) was made in his early days in Prague.

Anton Kling was a contemporary of Teschner (1881–1963). He received his education at the Kunstgewerbeschule between 1898 and 1903. His teachers were Josef Hoffmann and Alfred Roller. Kling belonged to the first generation of students who were taught by modern teachers of that institution, and who later became active in the Vienna art scene. Some of these art-students later became teachers and went on to teach not only in Austria’s Crown Lands, but also in neighboring Germany, where they successfully passed on the original Viennese art to their students.

One of them, the first Viennese at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Hamburg, was Carl Otto Czeschka (1878–1960). He brought with him Richard Luksch and Franz Carl Delavilla; the latter held a position as a design-teacher in Magdeburg (1909) as well as in Hamburg. Josef Maria Olbrich was employed in Darmstadt, where he became co-founder of an artists-colony. In 1911 another Viennese, Emanuel Josef Margold (1889–1962) joined the colony.

Anton Kling came to Hamburg in 1908, a move that was mediated by Czeschka. In 1923 he went on to Pforzheim, where he gave new impulse to jewelry design.