Dagobert Peche: Ornamental Genius

Janis Staggs, Neue Galerie New York

With his fantastical and highly imaginative designs, Dagobert Peche (1887-1923) sparked the emergence of a profoundly whimsical and a seemingly anti-utilitarian approach to decorative arts. His impact on the development of the Wiener Werkstätte (Vienna Workshops) in the era around World War I was profound, despite a career that spanned only a dozen years. At the time of his death in 1923 at age 36, architect Josef Hoffmann lamented that Peche was “the greatest ornamental genius Austria has produced since the Baroque.” This talk will consider how Peche’s relentless pursuit of the beautiful can also be understood as an unceasing search for happiness.

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