Hairwork Pictures
The museum’s wide-ranging collection of objects made from human hair includes love tokens and gifts, jewellery, commemorative and memorial pictures, album pages, artistic hairwork images, devotional pieces, and votive offerings. Giving, preserving, and artistically working with human hair were deeply personal acts, expressing affection, remembrance, and devotion.
In 1981, the special exhibition Jewellery Made of Hair (Schmuck aus Haaren) presented works from the museum’s entire collection of hairwork, including many pictures created with hair embroidery and cut-and-paste techniques. During the preparation of the exhibition, the already established collection of commemorative, devotional, and memorial images, as well as artistic works featuring human hair at the Volkskundemuseum Wien (Austrian Museum of Folk Life and Folk Art), was selectively expanded through new acquisitions. As a result, the collection has grown to around 67 hair pictures, representing a wide range of techniques and forms associated with this unique culture of remembrance.
This article will be published in English soon.