Postwar Portfolio of Alois Bohla’s Modernist Nature and Animal Motifs

Bohla, Alois. Neue Motive: Studien nach der Natur mit daraus gewonnenen Motiven und Andeutungen geschmackvoller Farbenwahl. Praktische Anregungen für Schulen und verschiedene Arten gewerblicher Verwendung [New Motifs: Studies from Nature with Derived Motifs and Suggestions for Tasteful Color Selection. Practical Ideas for Schools and Various Forms of Commercial Application]. Passau: Bohla, Verlag Neue Motive, n.d. [after 1945]. 4to. One text leaf and 20 color-printed plates on stiff card stock, loose as issued in the original illustrated cardboard portfolio.

Rare portfolio of decorative designs by Alois Bohla (1864–1932), the Austrian-Moravian designer and professor at the School for the Textile Industry in Brno. Bohla had already published a related portfolio around 1910, Neue Motive für moderne Flächenverzierung, comprising 24 plates. This later, apparently postwar collection similarly demonstrates the transformation of natural forms into designs suitable for applied and commercial arts.

The 20 plates present plants, flowers, birds, fish, insects, and other animals alongside stylized motifs derived from them, frequently employing striking selective color. Particularly notable are the highly simplified, almost pictogram-like animal designs. The introductory text explains the portfolio's pedagogical purpose, emphasizing observation of nature, simplification, repetition, freedom of composition, and the adaptation of motifs for craft, industry, and artistic production.