Author Description

The decade of 1930 to 1940 in Austria is characterized by dramatic contradictions in society: the antagonism between Christian-Social home defense an the Socialist paramilitary organization, the virtual shutting down of Parliament already in 1933, the civil war and the murder of Engelbert Dollfuss in 1934 as well as the resulting rise of the National Socialists up until the annexation to Nazi Germany in 1938: all of these events were not without consequences for the arts. With these circumstances, Austria not only lost architects, designers, artisans and painters of world rank, but also a large part of their clientele. Individual style was replaced by the totalitarian enforced conformity of taste.