29 May 2018

The role of women and salon culture of the 18th, 19th and 20th century presented at the exhibition 'The Place to Be' at the Jewish Museum in Vienna (30 May - 14 October)

Today, Fashion.at visited the press preview of the exhibition 'The Place to Be. Salons - Spaces of Emancipation' about women's roles in society and salon culture between the years 1780 and 1938 at the Jewish Museum at Palais Eskeles at Dorotheergasse 11 in the first district of Vienna.

The exhibition is a historical journey via the biographies of women who can be described as motors of the cultural life in Austria. The 'Air dress' on view at the image right is a reproduction of a reform dress based on the design by Emilie Flöge from 1909. At the (German/English) catalogue of the exhibition, the dress is placed as signature example of the role of women for innovations in art, design and other fields of cultural life such as new pedagogical strategies. For 'The Place to Be' - the title of the exhibition stands for the international character of the elegant salons where artists, intellectuals, politicians,... met, the curatorial team researched the biographies of selected women such as the life of Fanny von Arnstein (lived from 1758 until 1818) whose salon was mentioned at a report of the Metternichian secret police pointing out how the celebrations around a Christmas tree were held and who attended the salon - and who not. "... Herr von Humboldt was not there." (Source: Catalogue 'The Place to Be. Salons - Spaces of Emancipation', page 53.)

The 'Air dress' after the design of Emilie Flöge appears in context with another woman - Eugenie Schwarzwald, who was active around 100 years later as salonière and innovative founder of a school after new pedagogical methods - the 'Schwarzwald Schule', and is mentioned in context with Josef Hoffmann (architect, designer and co-founder of Wiener Werkstätte), Adolf Loos (architect, designer and representer of Vienna Modernism) or composers such as Gustav Mahler and Arnold Schönberg, theatre director Max Reinhardt, artist Oskar Kokoschka or socialist Karl Frank. Prominent graduates of the reform school 'Schwarzwald Schule', a girl's grammar school with higher school certificate, are Helene Weigel-Brecht or Hilde Spiel. From 1926 after World War I., the Viennese salon activities traveled during summer to the villa 'Seeblick' at lake Grundlsee in the Salzkammergut region of Styria. The curators' researches include even the fashion behaviour of that time such as that it was recommended to wear more relaxed clothing at the lake villa. "The girls made braids in their hair or wore their hair open; they were dressed in a 'Lufthemd ('air shirt'), a simple smock with a belt;..." (Source: Catalogue 'The Place to Be. Salons - Spaces of Emancipation', page 147.) In 1938, villa 'Seeblick' was sold to fund Hermann Schwarzwald's (husband of Eugenie) escape from Austria.

fig.: Exhibition views 'The Place to Be. Salons - Spcaes of Emancipation' at Jewish Museum, Palais Eskeles, Dorotheergasse 11, Vienna. Photos captured at the press preview on 29 May 2018. The exhibition is open from 30 May until 14 October 2018. From above, first image, in front: Air dress / reform dress. Reproduction based on Emilie Flöge, 1909; from the inventory of Wien Museum. Second image, left: Interior of the 19th century salon of Villa Wertheimstein; today, the villa is used for the museum of the 19th district of Vienna, the 'Bezirksmuseum Döbling' ('Döbling District Museum').


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