AUBÖCK: DIE SAMMLUNG GALLET

4.5. 2024 - 28.7. 2024

Touchstone Center for Crafts
1049 Wharton Furnace Rd., Farmington, PA 15437, USA

Located in Touchstone’s Bea Campbell Gallery, with select works placed at Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater home in situ.

The Gallet Collection, presents an exhibition of rare and important works of art and objects from the internationally renowned Werkstäte Carl Auböck, located in Vienna, Austria, and in operation for over 120 years. Works from this famous workshop are recognized internationally and included in important collections throughout the world. The Gallet family’s collection spans five generations and includes examples of metal-working, woodwork, ceramics, artwork, architecture, ephemera, and more. This exhibition provides an intimate glimpse into the extraordinary life of Valerie Auböck Gallet and her family shown through a private, curated collection of artworks and ephemera.

Valerie Auböck Gallet (daughter of Karl Auböck, the founder of the Werkstäte Carl Auböck) and her husband began their life together in Vienna, Austria in 1935 before fleeing Europe just before France declared war on Germany and settling in Uniontown, PA. It was here, in Uniontown, that they had a successful knitting mill ‘Gallet Mills’, which would play a vital role in the fashion industry, producing garments for some of the most iconic brands of the mid to late 20th century such as Catalina, Jantzen, Ralph Lauren, Jos. A. Bank, Izod, Brooks Brothers and more. This famous family also includes Maria (Bloch Bauer) Altmann, the central figure around which the book and movie, “Women in Gold” is based, which detailed the challenges Maria faced while regaining paintings of her aunt, Adele (a remarkable work of art known to many as the “Mona Lisa of Austria”) by the famous painter Gustav Klimt.

Text: Touchstone Center for Crafts / 2024