Pitcher

Richard Riemerschmid worked as an architect and a designer of furniture, glass, ceramics, metalwork and textiles during his long career. He was a founder of two design movements in Munich, the Vereinigte Werkstätten für Kunst im Handwerk (United Workshops for Arts and Crafts, 1897) and the Deutscher Werkbund (German Workers Alliance, 1907), through which he promoted his philosophy that well-designed objects should be mass produced for the general public. He also served as director of the Munich Kunstgewerbeschule (Decorative Arts School) from 1913 to 1924 and two years later established the Werkschule in Cologne. In this pitcher, Riemerschmid has combined a modernist approach to the form of the pitcher with the stylized applied vine motif in an object which looks handmade yet is produced by machine.