Patrick Parrish Gallery is thrilled to present a fantastic single-owner collection of the rare, vintage design objects crafted by the Werkstätte Carl Auböck. The personal collection of Clemens Kois, a photographer and Auböck monograph author, contains over 300 rare pieces crafted by the masterly Viennese workshop between 1940 - 1980.

The Werkstätte (Workshop) CARL AUBÖCK was founded in the early 20th century and started out as one of many workshops in Vienna specializing in bronze-casting. However, after Carl Auböck II became one of the very few Viennese students to attend the Bauhaus in post-World War I Weimar, the Workshop became greatly inspired by this new design movement and started to separate itself from the pack.

Expert craftsmanship and the incorporation of superior quality materials, such as hand-sewn leather, polished brass, animal horns, and various kinds of wood, became the signature of the Workshop, and many of their whimsical, modernist designs stand out as prescient objets d’art.

Carrying on generations of the Workshop’s tradition, son Carl Auböck III and grandson Carl Auböck IV were instrumental in forging ahead with new ideas and designs while preserving the quality craftsmanship and integrity of the Workshop, which today remains among the last of its kind.

Despite designing over 6,000 original objects and pieces of furniture in the early to mid-20th century, Auböck somehow has eluded the spotlight and the Workshop’s products remain cult objects of desire, cherished quietly by design greats and savvy collectors. More incredibly, only one-quarter of the Workshop’s designs have been documented, leaving an astounding 4,000 objects yet to be “discovered”.

Patrick Parrish and Clemens Kois, in addition to being Auböck-obsessed collectors, are the authors of the 2012 book Carl Auböck: The Workshop, and work closely with the Auböck family. Kois is an artist, designer, photographer, and impassioned collector of 20th-century design, particularly Austrian. He’s spent a great deal of time drawing inspiration from, and scavenging flea markets in the many cities he’s lived in, including Salzburg, Rome, Vienna, and New York City.