Cigarette and Match Holder with Ashtray
Wolfgang Hoffmann met his wife Pola when she was studying in Vienna under Joseph Hoffmann, Wolfgang's father and the co-founder of the Wiener Werkstätte. The couple immigrated to New York in 1925 and worked as a team until their divorce in the early 1930s.
This cigarette and match holder with ashtray typifies the work of early modernists, who favored geometric patterning over ornamentation to provide interest. The juxtaposition of the two rectangles and the hemisphere, itself inset with pie-shaped forms, creates a tension that elevates the utilitarian object into an art form.
This cigarette and match holder with ashtray typifies the work of early modernists, who favored geometric patterning over ornamentation to provide interest. The juxtaposition of the two rectangles and the hemisphere, itself inset with pie-shaped forms, creates a tension that elevates the utilitarian object into an art form.
Artwork Details
- Title: Cigarette and Match Holder with Ashtray
- Designer: Wolfgang Hoffmann (American (born Austria) Vienna 1900–1969 Chicago, Illinois)
- Designer: Pola Hoffmann (American (born Poland) Stryj 1902–1984 Stamford, Connecticut)
- Manufacturer: Early American Pewter Company, Boston, MA
- Date: ca. 1930
- Medium: Pewter
- Dimensions: 2 in. × 4 in. × 2 1/4 in. (5.1 × 10.2 × 5.7 cm)
- Classification: Metalwork-Pewter
- Credit Line: John C. Waddell Collection, Gift of John C. Waddell, 2000
- Object Number: 2000.600.10a,b
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
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