Koloman Moser was an Austrian painter, graphic artist and designer, born in Vienna in 1868 and died there in 1918, who was a central figure in the Viennese modern movement. He was a founding member of the Vienna Secession in 1897 and in 1903 co-founded the Wiener Werkstätte with the architect Josef Hoffmann and the patron Fritz Waerndorfer.
Moser worked across an exceptional range of media, designing furniture, silver, glass, jewellery, textiles, bookbindings, posters, postage stamps and stained glass, as well as painting. His style combined the elegant linearity of the Secession with bold geometric patterning, chequerboard motifs and a refined use of contrasting materials, as seen in cabinets veneered in exotic woods with inlays of mother-of-pearl and ivory. He contributed graphic work to the Secession journal Ver Sacrum and designed the glass windows of Otto Wagner's Church of St Leopold at Steinhof in Vienna. Original furniture and metalwork by him are rare and are chiefly found in museums and major sales, so most collectors encounter his work through prints, graphics and glass made to his designs by firms such as Bakalowits and Loetz. Provenance and documentation are vital, as his designs have been much reproduced.
