Megan Brandow-Faller

The cult of child creativity taking root in postwar America—or notions that all children are inherently creative with unique access to expressive powers—remains ubiquitous in contemporary American society. But rarely are such discourses connected to their intellectual roots in Secessionist Vienna. My project spotlights the critical role of pedagogue, craftswoman and designer Emmy Zweybrück-Prochaska (1890-1956), a partially-Jewish Austrian-American émigré, in shaping and popularizing Secessionist ideals of child creativity in postwar America. The goal of the grant is fund research for two peer-reviewed essays on Zweybrück’s American influence while feeding into a book project entitled Inventing Child Art in Secessionist Vienna.