Carl Breuer & Sons

This body of work is an investigation of early twentieth-century domestic textile design and Jewish-owned textile companies in Czech Bohemia. Breuer's artwork responds to their visual legacy and to their role within a distinct economic and cultural landscape. The case study for his research and artwork is Carl Breuer and Sons (CB&S), his family’s former textile printing business, founded 1897 in Bohemia. In 1939, upon the German takeover of Czechoslovakia, the CB&S company was seized and sold to new, Nazi-approved owners, as was the fate of all other Jewish-owned property in German-occupied areas. In time, most of his family members were sent to concentration camps and murdered. With the loss of their livelihood and then their very lives, most remnants of their work also disappeared. 

During his 2016 research trip to the Czech Republic, Breuer uncovered a substantial company archive of CB&S printed fabric samples and designs, held for decades within the Czech Textile Museum in Česká Skalice, as well as the company’s business records held in state archives in Zámrsk and in Dvůr Králové nad Labem, where the CB&S company was based. Breuer was able to amass a rich collection of primary source material in the form of digital scans and photographs depicting original CB&S textiles and samples, business records and correspondence. This archival material became a springboard for his art practice and led him to create an array of print-based objects and installations which raise questions about labor, authorship and appropriation while touching on his family’s story of persecution. Breuer refers to this endeavor as, “a reclamation project in which I resurrect, reinterpret and indeed, reclaim the designs of the lost Breuer family business and make them my own.” 

Návrat Banner 3 (Zwirn)
2024
Screenprint on Wool
86 x 42 inches
Návrat Banner 1
2024
Screenprint on Wool
86 x 42 inches
Návrat Banner 2
2024
Screenprint on Wool
66 x 40 inches
Tatra Tassels
2023
, Woodcut, Screenprint and UV Reactive Dye on Linen and Raw Silk, + Carved Plywood Frame
88 x 154 inches
Window for the Dvůr Králové synagogue
2020 - 2023
Kiln Formed Glass, Steel
46 x 28 x 2.5 inches

Installation at CEPA Gallery, Buffalo, NY, 2024


Bohemian Showroom
2019
Cyanotype and dye on cotton, Wood
18 x 8 feet

Installation at Jule Collins Smith Museum

Installation at Urban Glass
2023
Glass and Steel
Downtown Brooklyn, NY
Cotton Swan
2021
Pigmented Cast Cotton
18 x 24 x .875
Cotton Stag
2021
Cast Cotton
24 x 18 x .75
Rust Rabbit
2021
Pigmented Cast Cotton
24 x 18 x .75
Striped Monkey
2021
Pigmented Cast Cotton
24 x 18 x .75
Winter Wolf
2021
Pigmented Cast Cotton
18 x 24 x .75
Steel Tablecloth
2019
Kiln Formed Glass
14 x 13 x 13 inches
Forest Tablecloth
2020
Kiln Formed Glass
15 x 14 x 13 inches
Deflated Tablecloth
2019
Kiln Formed Glass
8 x 15 x 13 inches
Red Tablecloth
2019
Kiln Formed Glass
15 x 13 x 13 inches
Yellow Tablecloth
2019
Kiln Formed Glass
18 x 13 x 13 inches
Small Disaster
2019
Kiln Formed Glass
21 x 18 x 18
Spring Green Placemat
2019
Kilnformed glass
17 x 20 x 1 inch
Swing Girl Terrycloth
2019
Kilnformed glass
17 x 20 x 1 inch
Shattered
2019
Kiln Formed Glass
20.5 x 20.5 x .3 inches
Shield
2019
Kiln Formed Glass
21 x 24 x .3 inches
Ariane Forest
2018
UV-reactive dye on cotton
54 x 45 inches
Ariane Swans
2018
UV-reactive dye on cotton
Pattern #15 Cubed (purple)
2018
UV-reactive dye on cotton
54 x 45 inches
Animal Arc
2018
UV-reactive dye on cotton
54 x 45 inches
Tatra Tassel
2017
Woodcut, Screenprint and UV Reactive Dye on Linen and Raw Silk
40 x 40 inches
Aurora Cascade
2018
Woodcut on Kozo paper
20.5 x 15 inches
Chuppah
2017
Woodcut and UV Reactive Dye on Linen
84 x 84 inches
2018
Woodblock and Polymer Plate Prints with Foil-stamped Cover and Screw-post Binding, 24 pages,
4 x 4 inches
Available for purchase through the publisher: San Francisco Center for the Book
Swatch 15
2018
Woodcut
22.5 x 16 inches
Animal Ark
2018
Woodcut
22.5 x 16 inches
Swing Girl
2018
Woodcut
22.5 x 16 inches
Sol Swatch
2018
Woodcut
22.5 x 16 inches
Swing Gril
2018
Woodcut
22.5 x 16 inches
Hops
2018
Woodcut
22.5 x 16 inches
Checker Board
2018
Woodcut
22.5 x 16 inches
Badge
2018
Woodcut
22.5 x 16 inches
Rubbing Workshop Tables
2018
Engraved Plywood, Clipboard Clips
19.5 x 46.5 x 29.9 inches
Aurora
2017
Woodcut on Linen
40 x 40 inches
CB&S Floral Swatches
2016
Woodcuts on Raw Silk
65 x 45 inches
Sample Swatches
2016
Polymer Plate Relief Print
12 x 15 inches
Circus Folks and Badges
2019
Screenprint
37 x 30 inches

Published by the W.OR.KS. Printshop, Tomas Wojak Master Printer

Hans, Olga and Felix
2019
Screenprint
37 x 30 inches

Published by the W.OR.KS. Printshop, Tomas Wojak Master Printer

Scooter Girl
2016
Screenprint on paper
22 x 22 Inches
Sheriff Star Car
2017
Screenprint
26 x 20 inches
Pilot
2016
Screenprint on paper
22.5 x 22.5 Inches
Soccer Guys (Winter)
2016
Screenprint on paper
22.5 x 22.5 Inches
Soccer Guys (Summer)
2016
Screenprint on paper
22 x 22 Inches
Aurora Sampler
2016
Screenprint on paper
22.5 x 22.5 Inches
Lucerna Floral (Summer)
2016
Screenprint on paper
22 x 22 Inches
Lucerna Pool (Summer)
2016
Screenprint on paper
22.5 x 22.5 Inches
Rubbing Workshop Tables
2018
Engraved Plywood, Clipboard Clips
19.5 x 46.5 x 29.9 inches