Josef Frank, Architect and Designer

The Bard Graduate Center Gallery produces multiple exhibitions and publications each year, serving as a vital center of learning and a catalyst for engagement in the interrelated disciplines of decorative arts, design, and material culture. The gallery is celebrated in the museum world for its longstanding legacy of landmark projects dedicated to significant—yet often understudied—figures and movements in the history of decorative arts and design; these exhibitions and publications typically represent the definitive intervention on the artists and objects they investigate. BGC Gallery is also committed to generating and supporting a vast range of diverse presentations, small and large, that challenge traditional approaches to object inquiry; these examinations of material culture explore the human experience as manifest in our creation and use of “things” of all kinds. Whether originating in internal research and expertise, or in collaboration with external subject specialists, these endeavors prioritize rigorous scholarship while seeking to adhere to the field’s highest standards in production and design.

Josef Frank, Architect and Designer: An Alternative Vision of the Modern Home brought to the forefront of public attention the work of one of the 20th century’s most accomplished yet under-recognized architects and designers. It was the first examination of Frank’s career undertaken in the United States.

In the years after the First World War, Josef Frank was one of the leading modern architects in Austria and among its most accomplished designers. In 1933, fearing the rise of fascism, he immigrated to Sweden where he became the chief designer for Svenskt Tenn, the leading Swedish interior design firm. During World War II, Frank relocated to New York, where he lived and worked from 1941 to 1946 before returning to Sweden. Drawn from public and private collections in Austria, Sweden, and the United States, the exhibition traced the stages of Frank’s career trajectory and development. The object selected illustrated the ways Frank’s work in textile design, the decorative arts, and architecture all contributed to his innovative vision for the modern home.

On view at Bard Graduate Center from May 9–July 21, 1996, the exhibition was curated by Nina Stritzler-Levine, Christopher Long, Kristina Wangberg-Eriksson, and Christian Witt-Dorring.

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