Portable Music Stand
Sketch: Pencil on paper
Model: Wood, paper and textile
41 × 14 cm
ca. 1925
Catalogue raisonné 228

Arnold Schönberg Center, Wien

Arnold Schönberg worked as a craftsman all his life and was a designer, model builder and engineer. His love of inventing, constructing and designing partly developed out of need, as the objects which he created were substitutes for expensive purchases, although the hands-on work with materials partly served as relaxation, and Schönberg also seems to have searched for – and found – individual expression through the realisation and crafting of “inspirations.” Many of the smaller works crafted by Schönberg conform to this poetic principle of bricolage. He chooses simple and inexpensive materials which are already available or easy to obtain. Paper, cardboard, yarn, wire, glue and softwood are utilised to create useful everyday items such as a portable music stand for his brother-in-law, the violin player Rudolf Kolisch.