Jung Wiener Theater zum lieben Augustin by Koloman Moser (1901)

Who made this Vienna theatre poster?

The poster for Jung Wiener Theater zum lieben Augustin was designed by Koloman Moser (1868–1918) in 1901, not by Alphonse Mucha. The Belvedere's Moser catalogue records the work as a colour lithograph with gold ink and transcribes an interlaced “MK” monogram printed at the lower left. The old English title, “Young People's Theatre of Vienna”, loosely translated the theatre's name while losing its “Zum lieben Augustin” subtitle. The printed evidence names Felix Salten as director and the Theater an der Wien as the venue. Those particulars locate the sheet in Vienna's own theatre culture rather than in Mucha's Sarah Bernhardt commissions in Paris.

Belvedere identifies the printer as the Gesellschaft für graphische Industrie in Vienna. Its catalogued example belongs to the collections of the Höhere Graphische Bundes-Lehr- und Versuchsanstalt, with inventory numbers 1600_1 and 1600_2. The catalogue gives a 95.3 by 39.6 centimetre sheet and an 88.2 by 36 centimetre plate measurement; the two measurements refer to different parts of that held object. Its provenance notes acquisition from the printing firm in 1902. This precise trail is stronger evidence for authorship and production than a resemblance to another artist's long, narrow poster format.

Felix Salten's short-lived cabaret

The poster advertised Felix Salten's attempt to establish a literary cabaret under the name Jung-Wiener Theater Zum lieben Augustin. A Wien Museum account says the 1901 undertaking sought to be Vienna's first literary cabaret. It credits Moser with the avant-garde graphic design and stage scenery. Harsh press criticism and poor attendance brought the project to an end after only a few performances. The poster therefore announces an ambitious theatrical experiment whose life was much shorter than the design's later visibility in poster collections.

Salten was a journalist, theatre critic and writer as well as the venture's director. His name in the poster's large printed heading is a practical piece of publicity: it tells viewers whose theatre they are being invited to attend. The venue wording, “Theater an der Wien”, is likewise an address for a specific production setting, not a generic description of a Viennese stage. Read alongside the Belvedere catalogue and the Wien Museum's account, those words turn an apparently anonymous decorative figure into an advertisement tied to a particular organizer, place and moment.

The Arnold Schönberg Center catalogues a letter sent by Salten on 2 August 1901 under the name Jung-Wiener Theater “Zum lieben Augustin”, with the Theater an der Wien address. Its archive also records a second Salten letter to Schönberg dated 25 October, weeks before the opening. These are contemporary traces of the venture's preparation and its contact with a composer, not evidence that Schönberg appeared in the opening programme. They also show that the theatre's advertised name and venue were in use before Moser's poster reached its audience.

The theatre opened on 16 November 1901. In her study of Frank Wedekind's stage career, Sonia Bellavia traces listings in Vienna's Neue Freie Presse from 16 to 24 November; those dates document the brief period in which the venture was advertised, without establishing that it played every evening. Wedekind appeared at the opening with ballads accompanied by his guitar. An annotated edition of his correspondence places him, Hermann Bahr and other participants at the opening rehearsal. These records give the poster a more precise theatrical setting than the broad description “Viennese cabaret”.

Bellavia also summarizes the Neue Freie Presse review of 17 November: its critic judged the three-part opening programme amateurish and described impatient audience reactions, while supporters of the Viennese modern movement applauded from the gallery. That response helps explain the gap between the ambitious publicity and the short run reported by Wien Museum. It is evidence about the opening event, however, not a verdict on Moser's design or proof that every later performance received the same reaction.

The Austrian Cabaret Archive names a wider opening programme: Ludwig Uhland’s ballad Des Sängers Fluch set by Robert Schumann, Wedekind’s ballads, and the popular performer Hansi Niese. Its account says Salten closed after eight performances and accumulated debt. Brockhaus instead gives seven performances, also naming Wedekind and Niese. That one-show discrepancy cannot be settled by Bellavia’s run of newspaper listings, which records advertisements rather than a complete performance register. The supported conclusion is a very short run, with the precise count open until contemporary theatre records can be collated.

The name “Zum lieben Augustin” did not guarantee that every work planned for the theatre reached the stage. According to the University of Vienna's Hermann Bahr edition, Bahr wrote a pantomime about the historical street singer Augustin for Salten's company. A newspaper reported it complete in October 1901, but reviews of the November opening do not mention it; the editors therefore regard a performance then as doubtful. The pantomime appeared in print in 1902. Distinguishing a proposed contribution from a documented performance keeps the theatre's programme from becoming more definite than the surviving evidence allows.

Poster, programme and later reproduction

Moser's work for the cabaret was not limited to the wall poster. The Belvedere catalogue also lists a distinct 1901 cover for the theatre's programme, work number DG 129; the poster is DG 305. A programme cover would have been handled by an audience member, while the poster served publicity outside the performance. They are related commissions for the same venture, but their surviving records should not be collapsed into a single object.

The MAK collection holds a smaller 29.6 by 18.8 centimetre lithographic reproduction in the 1903 design portfolio Die Fläche. Its inscription calls the work a poster by “Prof. Kolo Moser” and includes an opening date of 16 November. That portfolio sheet documents the poster's subsequent circulation in a design publication; it is not the Belvedere-catalogued 1901 wall sheet. Its 1903 catalogue date should not be used to redate the original commission. The two records also show why physical sizes must remain attached to the specific object being described.

Reading the attribution

A tall, narrow theatre poster can call Mucha's Gismonda to mind, but format is not a signature. The monogram, named Viennese printer, Salten's direction and the Theater an der Wien inscription all belong to Moser's documented 1901 project. The earlier account of this page recounted Mucha's Bernhardt story and presented the Vienna design as another example of that sequence. Those claims confused separate artists, clients and cities. Moser's poster is better understood through the specific theatre venture it promoted and the related programme and later portfolio reproduction that institutions catalogue separately.