Most Loetz glass was commissioned by outside designers, and the best pieces were produced by the union of Loetz and Austrian designers. Many of these designers were aligned with the Vienna Secession Art movement which included Koloman Moser and Josef Hoffman. Loetz combines subtle but innovative forms with very advanced techniques in the use of color and artistic methods such as feathering. The principal staff designer for Loetz between 1903 and 1914 was Maria Kirschner, who was born in Prague but studied and practiced in Paris and Berlin. Kirschner favored subtle forms of elegant simplicity with little decoration beyond applied handles. Kirschner's work contrasted with the French Art Nouveau forms, including gooseneck vases and pinched, organic shapes, sometimes applied with tendrils of iridescent glass produced from the late 1890s. Kirschner designed more than 200 works for Loetz, some of which are signed with her monogram--not to be confused with Moser's mark of capital letters MK engraved. Her forms and scale are similar to the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany, whose career in glass making parallels that of Loetz and whose style shows a clear Austrian influence, perhaps learned as early as 1889 when Tiffany admired Loetz's display at the Paris Exposition. It is widely believed that glass workers from Loetz and other Bohemian factories defected to Tiffany's works in New York City, which would have been a welcome haven for emigrant artisans in the early years of the early twentieth century. In contrast to the fully evolved Art Nouveau spirit of Kirschner's Loetz, the designs by Josef Hoffman and his followers tend to be of controlled, almost architectural proportion. The combination of bold simplicity of form with vibrant, lustrous color and organic, pitted surface treatment created art glass of the highest quality. Loetz is fine art glass expressing the vitality and creativity of a most exciting time in the decorative arts.

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