History

Rosa Wien: Gay Rights, Schlager and Self-Exile: 1918-1938

By Casey J. Hayes

So…What comes to mind when you hear the word “Cabaret”? Perhaps…Liza Minelli? Yet, however historically accurate this depiction of the 1920s Weimar Berlin cabaret scene may be (I doubt they had Liza or Bob Fosse) it was a more reserved cabaret culture that developed within the Austrian capitol; more quick conversation, jokes, political statements, and sentimental chansons; less drag queens and spectacle. It would have, I believe, looked much more accessible to the conservative Viennese and less like the pages from a Christopher Isherwood novel. Yet, there are many historical yet little-known events that played out at the intersection of the struggle for civil rights for western society’s gay communities, the National Socialist’s persecution of homosexuals, and the fate of some of Europe’s greatest performing artists self-exiled in Vienna. The wildly hedonistic world of German-speaking Cabaret would be the backdrop for a collision which resulted in the ultimate elimination of the art of the “Kleinkunstbuhne” throughout Central Europe.

Rosa Wien: Gay Rights, Schlager and Self-Exile: 1918-19382022-08-25T15:01:48+00:00

Drawn to America: Julius Klinger’s Poster Art

Drawn to America: Julius Klinger's Poster Art

By Karen Etingin

Viennese-born Julius Klinger (1876-1942) innovated advertising posters, book and magazine illustrations, mass promotional campaigns, and brand development, and he had a single-minded approach to an International Graphic Language. He became well known in his Austrian homeland as well as in Germany by the outbreak of WWI via an artistic reputation built on the strength and range of his designs, which were characterized by graphic simplicity, eponymous typefaces and irony. An advocate of “Americanismus,” and the progressive attitudes towards modern business and media coming from across the Atlantic, Klinger understood the power of modern trademarks and logos and their ability to give identity to major businesses and manufacturers.

Drawn to America: Julius Klinger’s Poster Art2022-08-25T15:01:53+00:00

Designing His Life: Victor Papanek — with Alison J. Clarke

Designing His Life: Victor Papanek

with Alison J. Clarke

Alison J. Clarke's new book, "Victor Papanek: Designer for the Real World," is the biography of the Austrian-American trailblazer in social design. In the late 1960s, Victor Papanek began writing his seminal "Design for the Real World" which argued for socially and ecologically sustainable design long before the ensuing movements years later. Published in 1971, the impact and relevance of his book persists globally.

As a teenager, Victor Papanek fled Nazi-occupied Austria with his mother to land in New York. Before he even began his studies at Cooper Union, Papanek's experiences in Vienna had shaped his socially-responsible outlook. In this podcast, Dr. Clarke explains why, to understand Papanek and his work, she had to examine his life as an Austrian-émigré.

LEARN MORE

Designing His Life: Victor Papanek — with Alison J. Clarke2022-08-25T15:02:04+00:00

Designing His Life: Victor Papanek — with Alison J. Clarke

Dr. Alison J. Clarke discusses her new book, "Victor Papanek: Designer for the Real World," a biography of social design's Austrian-American trailblazer. V Victor Papanek wrote "Design for the Real World," a book that augured the ascent of socially and ecologically sustainable design movements many years later. Published in 1971, the impact and relevance of his book persists globally.

LISTEN

Designing His Life: Victor Papanek — with Alison J. Clarke2021-11-22T16:49:31+00:00

Vienna in Hollywood – CfP

Vienna in Hollywood

Call for Proposals

Organized by the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, the USC Libraries, USC’s Max Kade Institute for Austrian, German, and Swiss Studies, and the Austrian Consulate General in Los Angeles, which initiated this project, “Vienna in Hollywood” will explore and highlight the impact of Austrians on the Hollywood film industry from the 1920s through the present. The symposium is part of an event series of the same name dedicated to Austrian and particularly Austrian-Jewish heritage in California, organized by the Austrian Consulate General in Los Angeles. The symposium will take place at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and at the University of Southern California in December 2021.

Vienna in Hollywood – CfP2022-08-25T15:02:08+00:00

Americans in Vienna, 1945-1955

Tuesday, April 27, 2021

The Center for Austrian and German Studies at Ben Gurion University of the Negev (CAGS) and the Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies invite you to their online conference! The papers by historians from Austria, Israel and the United States will focus on the varied presence of Americans in Vienna during the first decade after the Second World War. The conference keynote, titled "Americans in Vienna, 1945-1955," will be given by Prof. Guenter Bischof (The University of New Orleans).

LEARN MORE

Americans in Vienna, 1945-19552022-08-25T15:02:22+00:00

Atom Splitting / Atomzertrümmerung: Austrian Manhattan Project Scientist Otto Robert Frisch in Los Alamos, 1943-1945

Atom Splitting /Atomzertrümmerung: Austrian Manhattan Project Scientist Otto Robert Frisch in Los Alamos, 1943-1945

By Kristina Poznan

The U.S. government’s World War II Manhattan Project benefitted from the work of several scientists born in Austria-Hungary, from physicists to chemists to mathematicians. Elizabeth Rona, Leó Szilárd, Edward Teller, John von Neumann,[1] and Eugene Wigner were all from Budapest, George Placzek from Brno, and Stanislaw Ulam from Lviv. Among those born in Vienna were Victor F. Weisskopf and, most significantly for our purposes, Otto Robert Frisch.

Frisch arrived in the United States to work on “Project Y” in Los Alamos in1943 as part of “British Mission” cohort of scientists (Frisch had hurriedly been made a British citizen to participate). Frisch’s scientific work had already taken him from Vienna to Germany, Denmark, and England before the United States, including the laboratory of his renowned aunt, Lise Meitner, with whom he theorized the fission of uranium. Although Frisch returned to Europe in 1946 after the war, his three years in New Mexico are indicative of a wide contribution of Austro-Hungarian scientific training to Allied victory in World War II.

Atom Splitting / Atomzertrümmerung: Austrian Manhattan Project Scientist Otto Robert Frisch in Los Alamos, 1943-19452022-08-25T15:02:37+00:00

ACFNY’s THREE WITH A PEN: LILY RENÉE, BIL SPIRA, AND PAUL PETER PORGES

AUSTRIAN CULTURAL FORUM NEW YORK ANNOUNCES PRESENTATION OF THREE WITH A PEN: LILY RENÉE, BIL SPIRA, AND PAUL PETER PORGES

On view March 11 through September 3, 2021

The Austrian Cultural Forum New York, in cooperation with the Jewish Museum Vienna, presents Three with a Pen: Lily Renée, Bil Spira, and Paul Peter Porges featuring works by the three Jewish artists driven from their homes in Vienna after the German annexation of Austria, the so-called “Anschluss”, in 1938. On view March 11 through September 3, 2021, the exhibition showcases examples of their signature work in comic books, New Yorker cartoons, Mad magazine spoofs, caricatures, portraiture, fashion design, advertising, and children’s books, among other formats. Biographical material and ephemera amplify the artists’ personal stories of survival and, in part, help contextualize their professional achievements.

LEARN MORE

ACFNY’s THREE WITH A PEN: LILY RENÉE, BIL SPIRA, AND PAUL PETER PORGES2022-08-25T15:02:45+00:00

Raptured and demonized: Josephine Baker in Vienna

By Mona Horncastle

In 1928, after two successful years in Paris, Baker starts her first tour of Europe with great expectations. Yet her victories are always accompanied by controversy. In Vienna, the first stop on her journey, Baker is omnipresent: posters advertising her second film La Revue des Revues show the almost naked Baker in pearls and feather jewelry throughout the city. The poster for her revue Black and White is no less revealing. Vienna is not Paris, and the entertainment culture of the Music Hall is still completely foreign to the city, which leads to agitation among cultural conservatives: Catholic circles mobilize before Baker even arrives in Vienna. When her train from Paris arrives, the church bells of the Paulanerkirche are chiming to warn the population of the "Black Devil." However, an unfazed crowd gathers to cheer enthusiastically as Baker arrives on the platform of the train station. The authorities are also ambiguous: on the one hand, Baker is promised police protection for the duration of her stay in Vienna, on the other hand, the Ronacher Theater is not permitted to show the announced revue.

Raptured and demonized: Josephine Baker in Vienna2022-08-25T15:02:52+00:00

Transatlantic Journeys in Musical Practice with Christiane Tewinkel

Transatlantic Journeys in Musical Practice

with Christiane Tewinkel

In this podcast, Dr. Christiane Tewinkel shares many fascinating aspects of her musicology research as related to Theodor Leschetizky and his American students. Born in Galicia in 1830, Theodor Leschetizky, a pianist and composer himself, became internationally famous as a piano teacher with over 1,000 students, including Fanny Bloomfield-Zeisler, Elly Ney, Ignacy Paderewski, and Arthur Schnabel.

Although Leschetizky had enormous influence during his time, his personal records had never been studied. That is, until now. Christiane Tewinkel traveled to the Leschetizky Association in New York to see their special collection for herself.

LEARN MORE

Transatlantic Journeys in Musical Practice with Christiane Tewinkel2022-08-25T15:02:58+00:00