Although active in the Wiener Werkstätte (Viennese Workshop) where he designed commercial graphics, jewelry, ceramics, posters, calendars, costumes, postcards, and bookplates, Bernard Löffler began his career as an independent painter and illustrator. He influenced generations of artists both by example and in his role as professor of painting and printing at Vienna’s Kunstgewerbeschule (School of Arts and Crafts) from 1907 to 1935.
Löffler’s graphic designs are prized for their Japonist simplicity, use of bold line, and flat color fields. His customized fonts are seamlessly integrated into his designs. In 1906, Löffler and fellow-artist Michael Powolny founded Wiener Keramik (Vienna Ceramics). The firm created tiles for the Wiener Werkstätte’s magnum opus, the Palais Stoclet in Brussels (1905-1911) and also for the Werkstätte’s Cabaret Fledermaus (1907) in Vienna. In their figurative ceramic pieces, cherubs and festoons that might have been old-fashioned and cloying in less skillful hands, became thoroughly modern, joyfully lighthearted, and at times slightly suggestive.