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For the very first time, the
legendary archives of the Viennese
silversmith Alexander Sturm are
presented to the public on the
occasion of the exhibition at
WAGNER:WERK Museum Postsparkasse.
Founded in 1883, in the same year as
the Postal Savings Bank, the
exhibition presents original
designs, sketches and drafts by
famous artists like Josef Hoffmann,
Oswald Haerdtl, Otto Prutscher or
Kolo Moser. Besides the numerous tea
and coffee services, bowls,
candlesticks, trays, cutleries etc.
dating from around 1900 till today,
the exhibition also shows tools and
machinery that are still in use.
History of the firm
Alexander Sturm (1851-1915) was an
ambitious silversmith who started to
produce silverware in Vienna/Austria
in 1882. He married the daughter of
Vincenz Carl Dub, a silversmith in
Vienna's seventh district. Sturm
opened his own shop in 1883, calling
it Alexander Sturm, Dub's Eidam
(i.e. Dub's son-in-law). His
customers came from the high
nobility and from what was called
Vienna's second society - the rising
bourgeoisie (industrialists, Jewish
bankers, civil servants,
high-ranking officers of the
Austrian army). Among them were
successful families like those of
Mautner Markhof and Löw-Beer
(brewers), Kohn (manufacturers of
bentwood furniture), Meinl (who
built up a chain of grocery stores),
Manner (manufacturers of sweets and
chocolate) and Wittgenstein (iron
and steel).
Although there were a number of
well-established silversmiths in
Vienna in the late 1880s (including
V.C. Dub, J.C. Klinkosch, Rozet &
Fischmeister, Jarosinski & Vaugoin,
Vinzenz Mayer's sons, Franz
Rumwolf), Sturm's business developed
favourably. The fact that Sturm
worked for so many rich Viennese
families seems to have attracted the
interest of artists of the Viennese
Secession movement, founded in 1897,
and of the Wiener Werkstätte,
established by Kolo Moser
(1868-1918), Josef Hoffmann
(1870-1956) and Fritz Waerndorfer
(1869-1939) in 1903. Although the
Wiener Werkstätte itself employed
silverworkers, they also
commissioned Viennese silversmiths
to execute artists' designs. Sturm
received orders for products that
were to be sold in the Wiener
Werkstätte shop and was also allowed
to produce these pieces and sell
them under the name of the artist.
During the Second World War, very
few designs for silver objects
were made. When the war ended,
Hoffmann, Prutscher and Haerdtl
again started to design silver
articles which were to be executed
by Sturm. From the 1950s onwards,
Sturm's business prospered again.
Adalbert Sturm had two sons:
Alexander (born in 1939) and
Adalbert (born in 1942). Finally,
Alexander took over the old
factory in Vienna's seventh
district and Adalbert moved to the
shop in the first district.
When Mrs Christa Berghaus-Fölster
moved to Vienna from Germany in 2003
she happened to rent an apartment
close to Alexander Sturm's shop.
There she bought new items and also
had her silver repaired. When she
heard of Sturm's plans to retire and
close down the business, she
decided, together with partners, to
buy the firm with all tools, models
and the extensive archives.
Today
the production facilities of the
firm, which specialises in
reproducing objects designed during
the Viennese Jugendstil and Art deco
periods and the 1930s, are located
in Lower Austria; the shop is in
Spiegelgasse, in the city centre of
Vienna.
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| Exhibition folder as download (PDF 145 KB) |
Alexander Sturm
The Viennese Silversmith Manufactory and the rebirth of the four-leaf clover mark
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| Duration of the Exhibitio |
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October 17 through November 18, 2006 |
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| Opening Times |
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Mon, Tue, Wed and Fri
8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Thu 8 a.m. to 5.30 p.m
NEW: Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
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| Information |
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www.ottowagner.com/museum |
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| Entrance |
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Main Banking Hall:
Free Entrance to the Special Exhibition!
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| Museum WAGNER:WERK |
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Entrance Fee: Euro 5.00
Euro 3,50 reduced fee for
students, senior citizens and groups
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| Free entrance |
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Bank customers of BAWAG P.S.K. on exhibit of customer card
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| Curator |
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Ingrid Haslinger |
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| Concept and Organisation |
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Monika Wenzl-Bachmayer |
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| Catalogue |
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Alexander Sturm
Die Wiener Silberschmiedemanufaktur und die Wiedergeburt des Kleeblatts
Hrsg. WAGNER:WERK Museum Postsparkasse
Vienna 2006
German/ english, 52 p., 91 ill.
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| WAGNER:WERK - MUSEUM POSTSPARKASSE - Georg Coch-Platz 2, 1018 Vienna |
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