Curator Guided Tour: VALLY WIESELTHIER: Ceramic Sculptor

with Rainald Franz

The comprehensive exhibition VALLY WIESELTHIER: Ceramic Sculptor is dedicated by the MAK to Viennese ceramist Vally Wieselthier’s (1895–1945) career in Europe and in the United States, where she lived and worked from 1928 on. The show was occasioned by her American family’s bequest of a part of her impressive oeuvre.

One of Josef Hoffmann’s and Michael Powolny’s students at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts, Wieselthier was the most prominent representative of a Wiener Werkstätte Ceramics wholly influenced by women artists. From 1927 she headed the production facility, where she developed a new form of ceramic sculpture of heretofore unknown expressivity.

The MAK exhibition had access to significant objects from European collections as well as from her estate in the USA, some never exhibited before now. Through the archive of the Wiener Werkstätte, the MAK already possessed incomparable sources and objects from her life and work, which now have been substantially augmented through the gift to the museum of her entire works on paper bequest; and which allow her career in the USA, little known on these shores, to be traced.

Fri, 29.5.2026 4.30 pm — 5.30 pm

MAK – Museum of Applied Arts

Black and white photography by Vally Wieselthier

PRACTICAL INFO

Meeting point: MAK Columned Hall
Language: The tour is held in German.
To ensure a pleasant museum visit, the number of participants per guided tour is limited. We therefore recommend booking the tour in advance to secure your spot.
Guided tour fee: € 5,50 plus admission
In addition to the ticket for the guided tour, an admission ticket is required. The admission ticket can be added to your cart after selecting the event ticket.