Fleeting Beauty: JTI Austria presents a piece of contemporary history at the Leopold Museum

18.11.2015

Art and design of the 1920s from the JTI Collection Vienna

19.11.2015 – The Leopold Museum’s exhibition of parts of the JTI Collection Vienna promises an exciting dialogue with art from the interwar period. “Nurturing and supporting art and culture is an important part of the corporate culture of JTI Austria (formerly Austria Tabak) whose history goes back more than 230 years. We are delighted to have found a partner like the Leopold Museum that is able to provide the ideal framework for these exhibits”, comments Ralf-Wolfgang Lothert, Corporate Affairs & Communications Director at JTI Austria.

In 1928 the Austrian Tobacco Monopoly, as it was then called, made advertising history by inviting renowned artists to help redesign its cigarette packs. The list of participants reads like a “Who’s Who” of the art scene at the time.

Members of the Secession and Hagenbund, such as Josef Dobrowsky, Anton Faistauer, Oskar Laske, Carry Hauser, Franz von Zülow, Ludwig Heinrich Jungnickl, Albert Paris Gütersloh and Alfred Gerstenbrand, created designs as did artists of the Wiener Werkstätte and the Werkbund, including Gabi Lagus Möschl, Mathilde Flögl, Maria Strauss-Likarz and Oswald Haerdtl.

Not only the design of the packets but also the introduction of new brands was to signal an opening towards Modernism. The brand Jam as well as another brand named after a contemporary jazz opera by Ernst Krenek are a testament to the enthusiasm for all things American at the time. The Asta variety was the first cigarette with a red silk tip.

The results of this competition to estheticize an everyday product do not only reflect that era’s zeitgeist. Lothert feels that “seeing as package design has now become a science, it is even more exciting to look back on a time when each type of packet still possessed an individual charm”.

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For further information, please contact:

RA (D) Ralf-Wolfgang Lothert, MBA
Director Corporate Affairs & Communication
JTI Austria
Tel.: 01/ 313 42 - 0
Email: ralf-wolfgang.lothert@jti.com

About JTI
JTI is a member of the Japan Tobacco group of companies, a leading international tobacco company whose head office is situated in Geneva, Switzerland. JTI operates in more than 120 countries and employs approximately 27,000 people. In 2007 Austria Tabak became part of this group of companies, with some 380 staff currently working for JTI Austria at its Vienna office, as field personnel, in its research and development laboratory as well as in independent wholesale. For further information, please visit www.jti.com/Austria or www.jti.com.

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