iMAK – Museum of Applied ArtsInnere Stadt
VALLY WIESELTHIER: Ceramic Sculptor
A survey of Viennese ceramist Vally Wieselthier (1895-1945), whose expressive ceramic sculpture spanned Europe and America, with many works from her US estate shown for the first time.
More in Vienna
Flora kneels with her body covered in orange blossoms and wild blue hatching. Wieselthier made her at the Wiener Werkstätte in 1928, and the MAK notes that she kept putting herself into her figures. Flora is one of them.
About 160 objects fill the central room of the MAK Design Lab in six themed chapters, not strictly by date: glass vases, a tiled stove, fireplace surrounds, ceramic heads, and drawings and photos from her paper estate. You follow her to New York, where she stayed after a 1928 show at the Met. Her telegram to Roosevelt read "Tell these people who I am", and if you've walked down Neustiftgasse past the old Wiener Werkstätte, you've stepped on that line, pressed into the asphalt.
Come for the ceramics and her American career, which the MAK says is barely known here, and expect plenty of paper alongside the clay. Entry is €19, under-19s are free, and Tuesdays run to 9pm with €9.50 entry from 6pm. It closes on 10 January 2027.
Look for
Flora (1928)
Look for the kneeling woman covered in orange blossoms and wild blue hatching, one of the figures in which Wieselthier portrayed herself.
Das Leben einer Dame (1916)
Her early hand-coloured linocut illustrations following a lady's life, the drawings the show unfolds from.
The tiled stove and fireplace surrounds
Wieselthier's ceramics at room scale, built to heat and frame a Viennese interior rather than sit on a shelf.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- Locals Who've Seen It All
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You only want sculpture: drawings, designs and photos make up a good share of the exhibits.
With kids
Under-19s enter the MAK free.
Also at MAK – Museum of Applied Arts
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
9
- VALLY WIESELTHIER: Ceramic Sculptor© MAK
- tierisch menschlichGraciela Iturbide, Nuestra Señora de las Iguanas (Our Lady of the Iguanas), Juchitán, Oaxaca, 1979. Dom Museum Wien, Otto Mauer Contemporary, Courtesy of the artist, Foto: L. Deinhardstein.
- A Muslim, a Christian, and a Jew - Eran ShakineCourtesy of Jewish Museum Vienna (Jüdisches Museum Wien)
- The Special Case of Steffy Goldner: The New York Philharmonic's First WomanCourtesy of Jewish Museum Vienna (Jüdisches Museum Wien)
- MAK – Museum of Applied ArtsGugerell / Wikimedia Commons, CC0
- Dom Museum WienBauer Alfons / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Haus der MusikClemens Pfeiffer, Wikimedia Commons
- Jewish Museum Vienna (Jüdisches Museum Wien)Sonja Bachmayer / Jewish Museum Vienna, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Kunst Haus Wien – Museum HundertwasserC.Stadler/Bwag, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0