OBRIST, Hermann
(b. 1862, Kilchberg, d. 1927, München)

Movement

1914
Plaster
Museum Bellerive, Zurich

Though art history has come to categorise Obrist as an embroiderer, there are a few surviving examples of his three-dimensional output. The impressive, ribbed shaft of a phallic monument seems quite lascivious - it says much about the underlying eroticism of Art Nouveau that the man who invented the whiplash also designed something that looks suspiciously like an instrument designed to give maximum pleasure.

The picture shows a model for a sculpture at the Werkbund Exhibition, Cologne, 1914.