Pola Stout
| Pola Stout | |
|---|---|
Rex Stout and Pola Stout (1944)
|
|
| Born |
Josefine Pola Weinbach January 8, 1902 Stryj, Austria-Hungary |
| Died | October 12, 1984 (aged 82) Stamford, Connecticut |
| Other names | Pola Hoffmann |
| Occupation | Textile designer |
| Spouse(s) |
|
| Children | 2 |
Pola Stout (born Josefine Pola Weinbach, January 8, 1902 – October 12, 1984) was an American designer best known for creating fine woolen fabrics. Born in Stryj, she studied with Josef Hoffmann at the Kunstgewerbe Schule in Vienna, and designed for the Wiener Werkstätte before she immigrated to the United States in 1925 with her first husband, architect and designer Wolfgang Hoffmann. Wolfgang and Pola Hoffmann became a prominent interior design team that contributed to the development of American modernism in the early 20th century. They dissolved their successful partnership in 1932, when she married popular mystery author Rex Stout. Pola Stout was an influential textile designer after her second marriage.
Pola Stout was born Josefine Pola Weinbach, daughter of Schulem and Betty Eliasiewicz (Tune) Weinbach, on January 8, 1902. She was born in Stryj, a city that was then part of Austria-Hungary and was later part of Poland. As a child she befriended dressmakers and used the scraps from their cutting tables to fashion clothing for her dolls, which she displayed in a window facing the street. She was unable to persuade her parents to let her pursue a career in art; instead, she was sent to the University of Lemberg to study philosophy. In addition to her coursework there she worked for a milliner, and saved enough money to run away to Vienna. On the day of her arrival she arranged to study at the Kunstgewerbe Schule (now the University of Applied Arts Vienna) with Josef Hoffmann. To save money for tuition, she slept on a park bench for her first six weeks in the Austrian capital.
During her four years of study at the Kunstgewerbe Schule, Pola Weinbach designed textiles for the Wiener Werkstätte and worked for Sigmund Freud, repairing a Gobelin tapestry. She then lived in Paris, working at a fabric house that supplied haute couture, and then moved to Berlin. On December 28, 1925, she married Wolfgang Hoffmann, Josef Hoffmann's son, who was on his way to New York to work as an assistant to architect-designer Joseph Urban. The couple immigrated to the United States, and after nine months with Urban they formed their own independent design partnership with offices on Madison Avenue in Manhattan. Their first years in America were difficult; Wolfgang worked in a machine shop, and Pola made lampshades and women's hats.
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