Josef Goller

Josef Goller (* January 25, 1868, in Dachau; † May 29, 1947, in Obermenzing) was a German stained glass artist and graphic designer. After an apprenticeship as a stained glass artist at the Mayer’s Royal Art Institute, Goller attended evening courses at the Munich School of Applied Arts. From 1887 to 1890, he worked in an art glass shop in Zittau, before taking over the artistic direction of the glass painting establishment of Bruno Urban in Dresden (later Urban & Goller). They realized designs by well-known painters, including the church windows in St. Michael’s Church in Leipzig by Ludwig Otto and a church window in Trebsen commissioned by a foundation from the Anton Wiede family.

Goller is considered an important representative of Art Nouveau and specialized in painting American opalescent glass. In Saxony, he created many stained glass works for windows in town halls, schools, churches, and train stations, including the reception room of the Leipzig main station and four windows for the registry office hall of the Nuremberg town hall, as well as works in the Radebeul town hall.

In and around Dresden, many of his church works were created, including St. Martin’s Garrison Church, Cotta’s Mary Church, and Radebeul’s Luther Church, as well as for the Görlitz synagogue. His notable works include the windows of the now-destroyed Imperial Palace, glass windows with zodiac signs at the Loschwitz school, and the color redesign of the foyer of the Semper Opera House in 1912. He also completed commissions for the Dresden Zoo and the New Town Hall. A mosaic depicting “Christ, Way, Truth, and Life” at the entrance portal of the Bishop’s Church in Bischofswerda was created by Goller in 1907 in collaboration with Villeroy & Boch.

In Chemnitz, Goller created black-and-gold frames for the council cellar, a Bacchus painting in the councilor’s drinking room, and works in the Chemnitz-Siegmar middle school and Chemnitz-Euba church. Twelve historical images in coat of arms form with floral and culinary motifs were reinstated in the New Town Hall Chemnitz in 2005. In the library of Waldenburg Castle, he designed the ceiling skylight. The wall paintings and mosaic images in Crimmitschau’s St. John’s Church are no longer extant.

As a graphic designer, lithography was his specialty. Goller maintained close relationships with book artists Peter Behrens and Johann Vincenz Cissarz. His caricature posters, now located in the Museum of Decorative Arts in Prague, are reminiscent of the design style of Edmund Edel. In his later years, he was repeatedly represented with oil paintings at Dresden art exhibitions in the Kunsthalle in the Lipsius Building on the Brühl Terrace.

Goller participated in the 1905 competition for advertising designs for Ludwig Stollwerck and Otto Henkell. His design was recommended for purchase by the judges for 200 marks. At the Dresden School of Applied Arts, he led the stained glass class from 1906 to 1928, becoming a professor in 1909, where his notable students included Otto Griebel and Oskar Fritz Beier. Later, he also increasingly turned to book art and poster design, with Kurt Fiedler among his students.

Goller was a member of the German Werkbund and belonged to the artist group “Die Elbier,” for which he created the landmark, a ship on moving waves. Arno Drescher, later a professor and director of the State Academy for Graphic Arts and Book Trade in Leipzig, was his son-in-law.