WMF IKORA METALLWORK

Overview

This publication WMF Metalwork draws on sales catalogues and advertising brochures documenting the entire range of Ikora metalwork produced by WMF (Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik AG, Geislingen) from the early 1920s until the 1960s.

Even during the first world war, Hugo Debach, who would later become director-general of WMF, took the initiative in having experiments conducted in chemical and thermal tinting of metals. Shortly before 1927 he founded the Neue Kunstgewerbliche Abteilung (NKA: New Division for the Applied Arts) at WMF for upgrading metals. The brilliant colours and the boundless possibilities for design arising from this new technique met with resounding success at the time. Now pieces of Ikora metalwork by WMF are coveted and valuable collector’s items.

The name ‘Ikora’, borrowed from a plant with brilliantly-hued flowers endemic to south-east Asia and sacred to the goddess Ixora, was designed to express the costly and exclusive quality of this line in metal products.

Complete documentation of all sales catalogues issued on WMF Ikora Metalwork between 1927 and the 1960s. The diversity of the range is astonishing – now the objects can be attributed to designers as well as dated!

WMF metal-object designers (a selection):
Alexandre, Paris | Prof. Behrmann | Fritz August Breuhaus de Groth | Paul Haustein (und seine Schüler Karl Kohnle, Rudolf Rieger) | Karl Holzinger | Wolfgang Tümpel | Richard Riemerschmid

Further, the following book is available::
WMF Ikora & Myra Glass