Prokop’s meticulous history restores Jacques and Jacqueline Groag to their rightful places in the pantheon of Viennese Modernists.
Prokop explores their individual careers in Vienna and Czechoslovakia, their early collaborations in the 1930s, their lives as Jewish émigrés, and the couple’s unique contributions in Britain for postwar exhibitions, monuments, furniture and textile design, even a dress for future-queen Elizabeth II. Full color edition, supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts.
The first book-length exploration of two pioneering Jewish designers of the Viennese Modern Movement, exiled in Britain after Nazi-occupation.
Between the two world wars, Vienna was a major hub of creative activity, especially in the fields of painting, architecture, and design. [...] In 1938, the Groags, like many of Vienna's Jewish artists and intellectuals who were not sent to concentration camps, were forced into exile by the Nazi regime. This expulsion not only deprived many people of their homes and livelihoods; it also left Austria bereft of a creative energy that had defined a rich, innovative era there. Ursula Prokop's abundantly illustrated double biography brings these little-known figures and their fascinating work to life.
–The Paper Brigade / Jewish Book Council
