Felice Rix-Ueno Textile Designs
The Wiener Werkstätte, or the Vienna Workshop, thrived from 1903 to 1932 as an artists’ cooperative, creating everyday objects with an emphasis on quality design. Taking inspiration from the Vienna Secession, the group was founded by architect Josef Hoffmann, designer and painter Koloman Moser, and patron Fritz Waerndorfer. It grew into a community of artisans who designed and produced furniture, textiles, apparel, porcelain, glass, postcards, and other useful but highly decorative objects for Vienna’s well-to-do.
Felice Rix-Ueno studied under Hoffmann. She later joined the Wiener Werkstätte and produced designs such as these for textiles, ceramics, glass, wood, and fashion. Economic and political conditions forced the workshop to close, and within a few years Rix-Ueno moved with her husband, architect Isaburo Ueno, to Kyoto, Japan. There Rix-Ueno became a professor at the Kyoto Municipal School of Art, where she would teach for more than a decade.