Image: Vally Wieselthier, "Head of a woman, model 511", 1928. © Galerie bei der Albertina Zetter
The Jewish Museum is presenting ‘Modernity and Opulence: Women of the Wiener Werkstätte’, an exhibition that brings together more than 200 objects by around 30 Jewish women artists and reframes the story of early 20th-century Vienna through their work as artists, designers, patrons and tastemakers. On view from July 17 to November 15, 2026, the exhibition examines how these women helped shape modernist aesthetics in Vienna and beyond.
The show is organized thematically and draws attention to the range and technical skill of the women associated with the Wiener Werkstätte, the multidisciplinary collective and commercial enterprise active from 1903 to 1932. According to the museum, recent scholarship has identified about one quarter of the nearly 200 women artists known to have worked for the Wiener Werkstätte as Jewish by faith, descent or family background. ‘Modernity and Opulence’ is presented as the first in-depth exhibition devoted to Jewish women—artists and patrons alike—who helped define the movement’s modernist ideas and visual language.
Founded by architect Josef Hoffmann, artist Koloman Moser and industrialist art collector Fritz Waerndorfer, the Wiener Werkstätte pursued the synthesis of art and life, or gesamtkunstwerk, as a principle of modern living. Its designers produced high-quality objects across media, and the museum situates women’s participation in that environment within the broader economic opportunities opening to women in Vienna during the same period. The exhibition’s approach connects artistic production to patronage and taste-making, rather than treating the women simply as isolated makers.
Two artists receive special emphasis: Vally Wieselthier and Felice Rix-Ueno. Wieselthier’s prolific ceramic work and Rix-Ueno’s textile design are highlighted for their lasting influence on those fields. The exhibition also aims to reintroduce artists whose names are less well known today, using their work to expand the art and design histories through which the Wiener Werkstätte has often been remembered.
The exhibition is a cooperation between the Jewish Museum, New York, and MAK – Museum of Applied Arts, Vienna. It is curated by Kristina Parsons, Leon Levy Associate Curator at the Jewish Museum, with curatorial consultancy by Anne-Katrin Rossberg of MAK. Leadership support for the museum’s exhibitions is provided by the Knapp Family Foundation, and major support for ‘Modernity and Opulence: Women of the Wiener Werkstätte’ comes from Jane and Reuben Leibowitz, The Silberstein Foundation, the Centennial Fund, the Horace W. Goldsmith Exhibitions Endowment, the Skirball Fund for American Jewish Life Exhibitions and the Joan Rosenbaum Exhibition Endowment.
The New York presentation also includes support from the Neue Galerie, which said it is lending selected works from its collection. In particular, postcards by female artists represented in the Leonard A. Lauder collection are on display. The Neue Galerie has long collected and presented Wiener Werkstätte material, including more than 1,000 postcards that entered its collection through the Leonard A. Lauder gift and were the subject of a 2010 exhibition devoted exclusively to Wiener Werkstätte postcards.
At the Jewish Museum, the exhibition is free with admission and is accompanied by related programming, including a “Writers and Artists Respond” talk on September 24, 2026. The museum is located at 1109 5th Ave at 92nd St, New York.
