Josef Frank

I found out about Austrian-born architect and designer while doing the research for Bold Botanicals.

He studied architecture at the Vienna University of Technology. He then taught at the Vienna School of Arts and Crafts. He was a founding member of the Vienna Werkbund.. In 1933, he emigrated to Sweden, where he gained citizenship in 1939. He was the most prestigious designer in the Stockholm design company Svenskt Tenn.

He had a strong botanical interest and he developed it into prints. He was putting together real flowers and ones, which his imagination created. His works were always based on colours and nature.

“The monochromatic surface appears uneasy, while prints are calming, and the observer is unwillingly influenced by an underlying slow approach. The richness of decoration cannot be fathomed so quickly, in contrast to the monochromatic surface which doesn’t invite any further interest and therefore one is immediately finished with it.”

https://www.svenskttenn.se