The sensible surrealism of Carl Auböck

Maker Focus

Salvador Dalí made a telephone shaped like a lobster, a joke about desire that nobody could actually use to order a taxi.

Meret Oppenheim covered a teacup in fur, rendering it beautiful and completely undrinkable. Surrealism, as a rule, delighted in objects that failed at their own jobs. Carl Auböck II, working in Vienna, took the opposite bet: a brass paperweight shaped like a human hand, a skeleton key that unscrews to reveal a hidden corkscrew, objects that look like they escaped from someone's subconscious but still, stubbornly, do the thing they're for. Surrealism with a day job.

The Walnut Paperweight—a gold-toned metallic object—rests elegantly on crumpled, light paper, echoing the playful sophistication and artistic craftsmanship of a desk sculpture from the Auböck workshop.

That's more or less the argument the MAK Museum made in 2024, giving the workshop its first proper retrospective and filing the work under Surrealism rather than the usual midcentury-modernism paperwork. Fair enough, and also a little on the nose for a designer trained at the Bauhaus, that great cathedral of function-justifies-everything, who then went home to the city that gave the world psychoanalysis and decided objects, like people, were allowed to have something going on underneath. A chain that isn't securing anything. A bookend that looks unearthed rather than designed.

What separates Auböck from his Surrealist contemporaries is precisely that his objects kept working. MoMA started collecting his cocktail shakers and ashtrays in the 1950s, filing brass barware alongside fine art without much apparent hesitation.

Carl Auböck II died in 1957, but the workshop his family founded a century earlier never stopped. It passed to his son, then eventually to his great-grandson, Carl Auböck IV, who runs it today alongside his daughter Zola and his sister Maria, still out of the original Vienna townhouse, still hand-producing roughly 450 objects from the classic collection.

Just the same slightly uncanny brass, made the same slow way, by a family that's spent four generations agreeing the strangest ideas are usually the ones worth keeping.

Collect them all:
A single, smooth Egg Paperweight in yellow—resembling a brass egg by Auböck Vienna—is centered on a plain white background. A glass of water, a golden spoon, some papers, and the Egg Paperweight—a sculptural brass accessory—are arranged on a wooden desk under soft lighting.
Carl Auböck

Egg Paperweight (Polished Brass)

$368
The Hand Paperweight is a solid brass, gold-colored sculptural object shaped like an open hand with five fingers, inspired by Viennese modernism and shown on a plain white background. A Hand Paperweight in solid brass—evocative of Viennese modernism—rests alongside other brass forms on a white tiled surface near a dark textured fabric. Crafted by the Auböck workshop, these pieces exemplify timeless craftsmanship.
Carl Auböck

Hand Paperweight (Polished Brass)

$352
A gold-colored, elongated, and sleek metal Letter Opener—possibly solid brass or a sculptural desk accessory—photographed on a white background. Displayed on a plain white background, the Letter Opener is a long, narrow desk accessory made of gold-colored solid brass featuring a tapered, pointed end and a smooth surface.
Carl Auböck

Letter Opener (Polished Brass)

$512
A gold-painted walnut paperweight sits centered on a white background—an elegant Walnut Paperweight that brings unique charm and sophistication to any workspace. The Walnut Paperweight, a small and irregularly shaped gold nugget resembling a brass walnut, is shown on a plain white background.
Carl Auböck

Walnut Paperweight (Polished Brass)

$272
Gold-colored Nutcracker made of brass, shaped like tongs and set against a white background. This modern piece reflects the timeless elegance characteristic of the Auböck workshop’s design tradition. A Nutcracker sits beside a bowl of whole chestnuts on a round glass side table between two beige upholstered chairs.
Carl Auböck

Nutcracker (Polished Brass)

$708