Who was Walter Bosse: (1904-1979)

Walter Bosse graduated at the Viennese School for applied arts, where famous artists as Franz Cizek and Michael Powolny were among his teachers. Under the direction of Josef Hoffmann he designed for the Wiener Werkstätte. In the 1920ies and 30ies he worked for well-known factories like Goldscheider, Augarten or Metzler+Ortloff. Additionally Walter Bosse designed for his own ceramic workshop which he founded 1919 in Kufstein. A sales store for these objects existed in the Viennese Hotel Bristol. As a consequence of the economic recession he was forced to close his workshop in 1937.

After World War II he moved to Germany and designed, mainly for the Federal Majolikafactory Karlsruhe, numerous figures of animals made of ceramic. Those objects became very popular in the 1950ies and 60ies. In this time he started to develop animal miniatures of the so-called “Black-Golden Line”. It was an innovative line of small brass animals that were patinated in black, whereas on several areas the polished brass shined through the black patina. Walter Bosse died in 1979, but his designs of small brass miniatures are still in production.