The Festival of Britain, the third and much the largest of the post-war design bonanzas is now regarded mainly as the start of the mass-public acceptance of the ‘modern’ design and architecture. … It opened up the possibilities inherent in designing and influenced the whole development of the modern multi-disciplinary design office. The Festival was British, extravagantly so, … but it is ironic that many of the main designers of the Festival in the post-war periods had in fact arrived from abroad: Stefan Buzas, Jacques and Jacqueline Groag. …Where would British design have been without this foreign input?
– Fiona McCarthy/Patrick Nugents, Eye for Industry, Royal Designers 1936–1986

Ursula Prokop is a Viennese art and architecture historian who has written several books and regularly lectures on her research in the field of architecture and cultural history in the first half of the 20th century. She has contributed to numerous publications, collaborative studies, and research for exhibitions. In addition to writing the definitive biography and analysis of Jacques and Jacqueline Groag and their work, Das Architekten- und Designer-Ehepaar Jacques and Jacqueline Groag: Zwei vergessene Künstler der Wiener Moderne (Böhlau 2005), she is the author of a biography of Margaret Stonborough-Wittgenstein (Böhlau 2003), acclaimed by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung, Kunstmarkt as a biography that “makes the past come to life in an exciting way.” The Neue Zürcher Zeitung called the Stonborough-Wittgenstein book one “of high merit” and “insightful into the lives of the Wittgenstein family,” while the review from the Süddeutsche Zeitung found the book exemplary for providing “new contours” not just to the Wittgenstein family story and Margaret, one of the more famous sitters for Gustav Klimt, but to the picture of early-20th-century bourgeoisie life. Prokop’s earlier biography of controversial architect Rudolf Perco (Rudolf Perco 1884–1942: From the Architecture of Red Vienna to Nazi Megalomania ; Böhlau 2001) was the first comprehensive biography of this model student of Otto Wagner and Prix-de-Rome winner of 1910. It explored his adventuresome unbuilt designs, his descent into a utopian fantasy of state control, his disenchantment with the Nazis and subsequent disenfranchisement, leading to his suicide in 1942. The Neue Zürcher Zeitung found the book to have “a wealth of facts” and to be “meticulously researched.”

Introduction

The Early Years The background and education of Jacques Groag
World War I and professional beginnings

The First Projects
Collaboration on the Wittgenstein House, 1926–29
The Moller Villa, 1927–1928
The first independent project: The Groag Villa in Olmütz, 1927–1928
Vienna´s artistic environment

The Artistic Breakthrough
Projects in Vienna and Moravia – first success as an interior architect
Getting to know Hilde Blumberger
The duplex at the Vienna Werkbundsiedlung, 1931–1932
Furniture and interiors
The Gustav Stern House in Perchtoldsdorf, 1932/33
The Paula and Hans Briess Villa in Olmütz, 1933

Projects in the Late 1930s
Ing. Rudolf Seidler Villa in Olmütz, 1935
Conversion and furnishings of the Paula Wessely Villa in Vienna-Grinzing, 1935
Otto Eisler country house in Ostravice, 1935–1939
The late 1930s – various projects in Moravia-Ostrau and Brno
Displacement and intermezzo in Prague, 1938–1939

Emigration and a New Beginning in England
Escape and a difficult start
The end of the war – an urban planning project for Soho, 1945
Jacqueline Groag establishes herself as a textile designer
The emigrants in England – a problematic situation

The Groags After the War – Utility Furniture and Exhibition Design
The utility furniture program – a new arena
The first postwar exhibitions – Modern Homes and Britain Can Make It, 1946
Further exhibitions – Ideal Home, 1949 and British Industries Fair, 1950
The end of the postwar era – The Festival of Britain, 1951
The 1950s – Jacques Groag’s interiors and painting as therapy
The late work of Jacqueline Groag

Conclusion
Jacques Groag – Catalog of Works
Architecture, interior design and furniture design
Painting and graphic art
Professional articles and publications

Bibliography
Monographs, catalogs, and articles
Unpublished typescripts and manuscripts
Periodicals – Jacques Groag
Periodicals – Jacqueline Groag
Archives and private sources