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Bauhaus-Frauen: Meisterinnen in Kunst, Handwerk und Design
This monograph—published to coincide with the Bauhaus exhibition at the MoMA (November 8, 2009-January 25, 2010)—celebrates the work of twenty women artists who created feverishly in all the teaching, workshop, and production branches of the Bauhaus—women who should have been included in the major art histories of the twentieth century long ago, but whose names, masterpieces, and extraordinary lives have only gradually become known to us. Recognized figures such as Anni Albers—the first textile artist to be exhibited at the MoMA—and Marianne Brandt—whose elegant geometric tableware have become classic Alessi designs—are showcased alongside previously unknown artists such as Gertrud Grunow, who taught "Harmonizing Science"; Helene Börner, who led the textile workshop; and Ilse Fehling, a sculptor and the most sought-after set and costume designer of her generation. Founded in 1919, the Bauhaus and most of its students were poor and lacking in just about everything. What it did have, however, was an abundance of enthusiasm, talent, and innovative creativity. Furthermore, over half of those seeking to enroll at the school were women. This tornado of the "fairer sex" was initially seen as a threat, and the weaving mill was quickly turned into a separate "women’s facility." Nevertheless, over the years the mill became a hotbed of groundbreaking production, whose impact far surpassed national borders, as demonstrated by the international acclaim of photographers Lucia Moholy, Florence Henri, and Grete Stern.
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First published January 1, 2009
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January 25, 2018
Wenn eines auf mich in Kunst und Literatur große Anziehung ausübt, dann solcherlei kleine Splitterepochen, denen kaum ein paar Jahre zugedacht waren. Seit dem Studium bin ich z.B. fasziniert von der Neuen Sachlichkeit, vielleicht verwundert es da nicht, dass mich auch der BAUHAIS-Stil nicht kalt ließ. Das Buch fand eher durch Zufall den Weg zu mir: alles begann mit der Lesung von Theresia Enzensbergers „Blaupause“ – einen Abend, den ich Dank Sympathie zur Autorin sehr genoss, jedoch sagte mir das Vorgelesene aus dem Roman absolut nicht zu. Es flammte aber ein Interesse für die Kunst-Thematik des Buches auf.
Das erste Drittel des 20. Jahrhunderts ist geprägt vom weiblichen Aufbruch in der Kunst, Frauen beginnen an Kunstgewerbeschulen zu studieren und einige finden in den 1920er Jahren zum Weimarer Bauhaus. Die neue Ausbildungsstätte bietet jungen Kreativen einen Ort für künstlerische Experimente, die bald eng mit dem Industriedesign verbunden werden. Es gilt Einfachheit, Schnörkellosigkeit und Funktionalität der bloßen Ästhetik voranzustellen. Klingt langweilig? Wenn man sich die Werke der Bauhäusler beschaut, wird man zum Glück eines Besseren belehrt! (:
Das Vorwort versucht die Gründung des Bauhaus durch Gropius, Itten und Co möglichst schnell abzuhandeln, um die Frauen, die zu Bauhauszeiten Anfeindungen, Ausgrenzungen und patriarchalen Strukturen* ausgesetzt waren, ins Zentrum zu rücken.
„Kunst und Technik, eine neue Einheit!“
Das Buch widmet sich in ausführlicheren Portraits u.a. folgenden Künstlerinnen:
- GETRUD GRUNOW (1870-1944)
Die einzige Frau, die am Bauhaus als ‚Formmeisterin‘ wirkte und an die StudentInnen eine praktische Harmonisierungslehre vermitteln wollte. Nur ein Mensch, der mit seiner Umwelt und sich selbst in Harmonie lebe, kann ihrer Meinung nach schöpferisch tätig sein. Die Lehrmethoden müssen definitiv etwas verschroben gewesen sein, wenn den TeilnehmerInnen ihrer Seminare, die Aufgabe gegeben worden sein soll, sie sollen die Farbe Blau tanzen. In ihren Kursen ging es eindeutig mehr um Identitätsbildung als um ein künstlerisches Handwerk.
- GUNTA STÖLZL (1897-1983)
Eine der erfolgreichsten Bauhaus-Frauen, die vor allem die Webereiwerkstatt geprägt hat. Die Weberei schaffte den Schritt zum modernen Industriedesign, das die Einkünfte des Bauhaus sicherte. Dass sie letztlich einen jüdischen Mann heiratet, wird ihr Untergang im Bauhaus, aus dessen Gemeinschaft man sie rausekelt.
- ANNI ALBERS (1899-1994)
In ihrem Kapitel wird viel über das Experimentieren am Bauhaus geschrieben. Wie Gunta Stölzl war sie erfolgreich in der Weberei-Werkstatt tätig. Mit der Entwicklung eines schalldichten, lichtreflektierenden Wandbespannungsstoffs gelingt ihr eine wahre Innovation in der Werkstatt.
Auch sie muss Deutschland 1933 aufgrund ihrer jüdischen Herkunft verlassen.
- OTTI BERGER (1898-1944)
Eine Frau, die erst zum Dessauer Bauhaus dazustieß, auch sie ging in die Weberei. Sie sah im Stoff etwas organisches, das sie formen konnte. Zur NS-Zeit schafft sie es nicht mehr rechtzeitig auszureisen und wird im KZ Auschwitz umkommen.
Dass der Webereiwerkstatt so viel Aufmerksamkeit zukommt, liegt vornehmlich daran, dass die meisten der Bauhaus-Frauen in dieses Gebiet abgedrängt wurden.
Dennoch weiß das Buch auch von Frauen zu berichten, die andere Werkstätte wählten und sich in diesen [oft als einzige Frau] durchzusetzen versuchten:
MARGARETE HEYMANN-LOEBENSTEIN-MARKS (Keramikerin, sehr androgyn, bekannt geworden durch ihre Haël-Keramik), MARGUERITE FRIEDLAENDER-WILDENHAIN (Keramikerin, bekannt geworden durch die Halleschen Formen ihrer Tongefäße), FRIEDL DICKER (jüdische Malerin, die sich abstrakten Formen zuwendet, die selbst im KZ Auschwitz noch Zeichenstunden für Kinder gibt), LOU SCHEPER-BERKENKAMP (Malerin, die viel mit geometrischen Formen experimentiert und später Kinderbücher illustriert), LILLY REICH (Gestalterin und Innenarchitektin, Frau von Mies van der Rohe), MARIANNE BRANDT (die junge Frau auf dem Buchcover, Fotografin, Collagen zur ‚Neuen Frau‘, später auch in der Metallwerkstatt), GRETE STERN (jüdische Fotografin, akribisch genaue Abbildungen der Wirklichkeit, viele Fotomontagen) und LUCIA MOHOLY (Hausfotografin des Bauhaus, Vertreterin der Neuen Sachlichkeit, arbeitete rezeptiv).
In den Einzelportraits werden immer wieder Herausforderungen und Probleme des Bauhaus beschrieben. Das Bemühen, unpolitisch zu bleiben, flackert oft auf, die Spaltungen innerhalb der Gründer, die sich in verschiedene künstlerischeRichtungen entwickeln wird erwähnt und doch zeigt das Buch vor allem das künstlerische und schöpferische Potential jeder einzelnen Frau und holt diese aus der Vergessenheit.
Ein sehr würdiges Portrait der Bauhaus-Frauen.
*Itten: Frauen sei zweidimensionales Denken angeboren, sie sollen lieber in der Fläche arbeiten.
Klee: Genie sei ausschließlich männlich.
Schlemmer/Kandinsky: Schöpfertum und Männlichkeit seien identisch
Das erste Drittel des 20. Jahrhunderts ist geprägt vom weiblichen Aufbruch in der Kunst, Frauen beginnen an Kunstgewerbeschulen zu studieren und einige finden in den 1920er Jahren zum Weimarer Bauhaus. Die neue Ausbildungsstätte bietet jungen Kreativen einen Ort für künstlerische Experimente, die bald eng mit dem Industriedesign verbunden werden. Es gilt Einfachheit, Schnörkellosigkeit und Funktionalität der bloßen Ästhetik voranzustellen. Klingt langweilig? Wenn man sich die Werke der Bauhäusler beschaut, wird man zum Glück eines Besseren belehrt! (:
Das Vorwort versucht die Gründung des Bauhaus durch Gropius, Itten und Co möglichst schnell abzuhandeln, um die Frauen, die zu Bauhauszeiten Anfeindungen, Ausgrenzungen und patriarchalen Strukturen* ausgesetzt waren, ins Zentrum zu rücken.
„Kunst und Technik, eine neue Einheit!“
Das Buch widmet sich in ausführlicheren Portraits u.a. folgenden Künstlerinnen:
- GETRUD GRUNOW (1870-1944)
Die einzige Frau, die am Bauhaus als ‚Formmeisterin‘ wirkte und an die StudentInnen eine praktische Harmonisierungslehre vermitteln wollte. Nur ein Mensch, der mit seiner Umwelt und sich selbst in Harmonie lebe, kann ihrer Meinung nach schöpferisch tätig sein. Die Lehrmethoden müssen definitiv etwas verschroben gewesen sein, wenn den TeilnehmerInnen ihrer Seminare, die Aufgabe gegeben worden sein soll, sie sollen die Farbe Blau tanzen. In ihren Kursen ging es eindeutig mehr um Identitätsbildung als um ein künstlerisches Handwerk.
- GUNTA STÖLZL (1897-1983)
Eine der erfolgreichsten Bauhaus-Frauen, die vor allem die Webereiwerkstatt geprägt hat. Die Weberei schaffte den Schritt zum modernen Industriedesign, das die Einkünfte des Bauhaus sicherte. Dass sie letztlich einen jüdischen Mann heiratet, wird ihr Untergang im Bauhaus, aus dessen Gemeinschaft man sie rausekelt.
- ANNI ALBERS (1899-1994)
In ihrem Kapitel wird viel über das Experimentieren am Bauhaus geschrieben. Wie Gunta Stölzl war sie erfolgreich in der Weberei-Werkstatt tätig. Mit der Entwicklung eines schalldichten, lichtreflektierenden Wandbespannungsstoffs gelingt ihr eine wahre Innovation in der Werkstatt.
Auch sie muss Deutschland 1933 aufgrund ihrer jüdischen Herkunft verlassen.
- OTTI BERGER (1898-1944)
Eine Frau, die erst zum Dessauer Bauhaus dazustieß, auch sie ging in die Weberei. Sie sah im Stoff etwas organisches, das sie formen konnte. Zur NS-Zeit schafft sie es nicht mehr rechtzeitig auszureisen und wird im KZ Auschwitz umkommen.
Dass der Webereiwerkstatt so viel Aufmerksamkeit zukommt, liegt vornehmlich daran, dass die meisten der Bauhaus-Frauen in dieses Gebiet abgedrängt wurden.
Dennoch weiß das Buch auch von Frauen zu berichten, die andere Werkstätte wählten und sich in diesen [oft als einzige Frau] durchzusetzen versuchten:
MARGARETE HEYMANN-LOEBENSTEIN-MARKS (Keramikerin, sehr androgyn, bekannt geworden durch ihre Haël-Keramik), MARGUERITE FRIEDLAENDER-WILDENHAIN (Keramikerin, bekannt geworden durch die Halleschen Formen ihrer Tongefäße), FRIEDL DICKER (jüdische Malerin, die sich abstrakten Formen zuwendet, die selbst im KZ Auschwitz noch Zeichenstunden für Kinder gibt), LOU SCHEPER-BERKENKAMP (Malerin, die viel mit geometrischen Formen experimentiert und später Kinderbücher illustriert), LILLY REICH (Gestalterin und Innenarchitektin, Frau von Mies van der Rohe), MARIANNE BRANDT (die junge Frau auf dem Buchcover, Fotografin, Collagen zur ‚Neuen Frau‘, später auch in der Metallwerkstatt), GRETE STERN (jüdische Fotografin, akribisch genaue Abbildungen der Wirklichkeit, viele Fotomontagen) und LUCIA MOHOLY (Hausfotografin des Bauhaus, Vertreterin der Neuen Sachlichkeit, arbeitete rezeptiv).
In den Einzelportraits werden immer wieder Herausforderungen und Probleme des Bauhaus beschrieben. Das Bemühen, unpolitisch zu bleiben, flackert oft auf, die Spaltungen innerhalb der Gründer, die sich in verschiedene künstlerischeRichtungen entwickeln wird erwähnt und doch zeigt das Buch vor allem das künstlerische und schöpferische Potential jeder einzelnen Frau und holt diese aus der Vergessenheit.
Ein sehr würdiges Portrait der Bauhaus-Frauen.
*Itten: Frauen sei zweidimensionales Denken angeboren, sie sollen lieber in der Fläche arbeiten.
Klee: Genie sei ausschließlich männlich.
Schlemmer/Kandinsky: Schöpfertum und Männlichkeit seien identisch
May 25, 2023
Introduction: Early Modernism, the Bauhaus, and Bauhaus Women
p.8 – Apart from a few exceptions, women did not have access to study art at academies in the nineteenth century. They could only take private lessons and had to pay much more for these lessons than men. The Grossherzogliche Sächsische Kunstgewerbeschule (Grand Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts) in Weimar was among the few academies which accepted female students before the founding of the Weimar Republic. In the winter semester 1912-1913 there were fifty-five women registered and ninety-nine men.
The expression “decorative artist” or “decorative arts” apart from its neutral, objective meaning was applied, as demonstrated by the art historian Magdalena Droste, in a pejorative, segregating manner to mean “female” (superficial or dilettante). Even Bauhaus director Gropius warned of “decorative arts dilettantism.”
p.9 – the English Arts and Crafts movement, which ha in the last third of the nineteenth century declared war on academic art on the one hand, and on mass-production of crafts on the other, and which aspired to a synthesis between painting, architecture, and crafts. The most famous representative of this movement was William Morris, a country-house builder and wallpaper designer who countered the established school of thought by which textile work was dismissed as “mere” female activity.
The designated gender-specific tuition fee regulation [in the first year of the Bauhaus], according to which gentlemen were to pay 150 marks and ladies 180 marks, was no longer applicable in the provisional budget for 1919-20. Most young women, who began their studies at the Weimar Bauhaus in 1919, had already completed a training course in a craft or educational subject. Eighty-four female and seventy-nine male applicants registered at the Bauhaus in the summer semester of 1919, attracted by the visionary character of the school and the possibility of acquiring a concrete occupation. In his first speech, Gropius proclaimed: “No difference between the beautiful and the strong sex. Absolute equality but also absolutely equal obligation to the work of all craftsmen.”
p.10 – Gropius feared early on that the large number of women would harm the school’s reputation and recommended not to undertake “anymore unnecessary experiments,” and made the recommendation that “immediately following acceptance, an exact selection be made, above all among those of the more strongly represented female sex.” Gerhard Marcks, ceramics form master, argued clearly in favour of “accepting as few women as possible in the pottery workshop, in both their interest and in the interest of the workshop.” Carl Zaubitzer, head of graphic printing, likewise thought it better “for the future, to keep the female sex away from the printshop.” The gifted artist Johanna Hummel was successfully ousted from the metal workshop following her application by being forbidden to sell her works herself, although it was obvious that she needed the income to live on. It was cleat that the masters feared that female students would take valuable employment away from their male counterparts. Some women nevertheless succeeded in achieving positions in these male domains, for example, Dörte Helm and Lou Scheper in mural painting.
As handweaving was generally classed as a craft and took last place in the hierarchy of art and craft, it seemed logically consistent that this workshop be led by a woman. The Masters’ Council hoped in vain that the women’s class would solve the “female problem.” The weaving workshop soon became one of the most productive workshops and also had such commercial success that it took on a representative character for the entire Bauhaus.
p.12 – Marianne Brandt, who ran the metal workshop [in Dessau] and developed prototypes for industry with great success, was bullied out of the workshop by her younger fellow student, Hin Bredendiek. He then took on a professorship in Chicago during the Nazi period. She disappeared into domestic “emigration” at her parents’ house in Chemnitz.
In time, the number of female students at the Bauhaus dropped. In the summer semester of 1922, there were fifty-two women and ninety-five men; in the winter semester 1924-25, thirty-two women and sixty-eight men. This can certainly be attributed to the Bauhaus’ move away from crafts and towards technical experiments. However, some of the women, among them Alma Buscher, Marianne Brandt, Otti Berger, and Anni Albers, were delighted to follow the new path and were very successful with their industrial prototypes.
p.13 – The focus on architecture and the dismantling of the workshop system under the authoritarian leadership of Mies van der Rohe finally led to a further drop in female student numbers. In the winter semester of 1932-33 there were only twenty-five women and ninety men at the Bauhaus in Berlin.
Between Craft Tradition, Educational Reformism, and Free Art: Teachers and Students of the First Generation
p.14 – Among the approximately forty-five Bauhaus teachers in Weimar and the thirty-five in Dessau, there were in each case six women, including teachers. A mere three of these women held leading positions in the weaving workshop during the entire Bauhaus period. The teachers of the first generation were Helene Börner, workshop master in Weimar; Gunta Stölzl, a teacher of the second generation as young master in Dessau; and Lilly Reich, externally appointed head of weaving and development in Dessau and Berlin. Lilly Reich was, among twelve male colleagues, the only woman in Berlin.
Helene Börner (1870-1938)
p.23 – Helene Börner (1870-1938) was invited by Henry van de Velde to teach at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Weimar in 1904. From October 1906, Helene Börner taught Swedish weaving and embroidery. In 1909 she also took over the running of the carpet workshop.
p.24 – With the merging of the Kunstgewerbeschule with the Kunsthochschule (fine arts college) under the Bauhaus in 1919, Helene Börner’s workshop was taken over by the Bauhaus in its old form. The first craftspeople appointed by the Bauhaus, Helene Börner and Otto Dorfner (printing workshop), effectively operated their own workshops as before while being contractually bound to the Bauhaus.
Gunta Stölzl (1897-1983)
p.45 – Bauhaus artist Anni Albers, who studied with Gunta Stölzl in Weimar, remembered it thus: “There was no proper teacher for textile work, we had no proper classes. Today people say only: They learned all this at the Bauhaus! At the beginning we learned nothing at all. I learned a lot from Gunta, who was a fantastic teacher. We sat there and simply tried things out.” From 1920 the work in the weaving workshop was more tightly organized, and six-hour working day agreed upon. The motives behind this were primarily economic ones, as it was necessary to sell the products in order to reduce the costs of the Bauhaus.
p.47 – Gunta Stölzl developed new syllabuses in Dessau, since the opening of the architecture department in 1927 demanded of the weaving workshop technically perfect modern products. The workshop took on ever-bigger orders, for example the fitting out of the theater café in Dessau with curtains and wall coverings. Alongside this, identical blankets were woven for the students’ hall of residence according to a design by Gunta Stölzl, furniture fabrics were produced for Marcel Breuer’s tubular steel chairs, and later the new Gewerkschaftsschule (Trade Union School) in Bernau was also furnished. Selling exhibitions also took place at the Leipzig trade fairs, which meant that the workshop had to cope with an extremely heavy workload.
Anni Albers (1899-1994)
p.50 – “Every beginner should be afforded this freedom of creativity. Courage is a key factor in every form of artistic creative process, it can best unfold when it is not curtailed too early by knowledge.” (Anni Albers, Die Werkstatt der Weberei [The Weaving Workshop])
p.51 – She rented a simple room in Weimar, applied to the Bauhaus and was, however, at first turned down. Nevertheless, she stayed and fell in love with Josef Albers, who had studied at the Bauhaus since fall 1920. He was eleven years her senior, a trained artist. She convinced him to help her in a second attempt, and it worked. Anni Fleischmann began her studies at the Weimar Bauhaus on April 21, 1922. She received basic instruction from Muche and in the second semester took Itten’s preliminary course and introduction to artistic design.
p.52 – In the third semester she turned up in the “Women’s Department,” the weaving workshop, and felt out of place. “I considered weaving too womanish. I was looking for the right occupation and so I began weaving without any great enthusiasm, as this choice caused the least comment.”
Gertrud Arndt (1903-2000)
p.56 – “They all went to the weaving workshop, whether they wanted to or not. Yes, that was simply the way out… I never wanted to weave. It was absolutely not my aim.” (Gertrud Arndt)
p.57 – Gertrud Hantschk wanted to study architecture but she was the only woman on the construction course and, according to her own statement, felt lost there. […] She joined the weaving workshop. She viewed training in this workshop as her only possibility of continuing at the Bauhaus, as a woman. She began with the creation of a rug design for Gropius’ office in Weimar, which had already been redesigned for the great Bauhaus exhibition of 1923.
A further meticulously painted rug design from 1924 was especially difficult to realize due to the thirty-seven colours, as the threads were no longer available to buy: “I had to dye all the wool myself – without knowledge and without help. It was awful,” she remembered in her biography for the Vorwerk company brochure in 1993.
p.58 – in 1927 Gertrude Hantschk, together with Mila Lederer, protested against the school exhibiting pieces marked “Bauhaus” without mention of the individual student’s name. Otti Berger objected much later.
In 1927 Gertrud Hantschk married Bauhaus student Alfred Arndt. He passed his journeyman’s examination in 1924 and had since lived and worked as a freelance architect in Probstzella, where he created the largest (until 1927) surviving Bauhaus ensemble, the Haus des Volkes in Thuringia. He worked and took his master’s exam at the Bauhaus in 1928. In 1929, the couple moved to Dessau where Alfred Arndt became full-time Bauhaus master in the construction workshop.
p.59 – Gertrud Arndt took part in Bauhaus events and also too the photography course which had been newly established by Walter Peterhans in 1929, but was not fully integrated in the day-to-day work.
Hammer and Chisel, Drawing Board and Paintbrush, Costume and Patent: Multi-talents in Painting, Graphics, Sculpture, and Theatre Design
p.84 – On September 2, 1920, director Walter Gropius wrote to the masters of the council who represented the Bauhaus teachers: “The ratio of male to female students is such that the acceptance of women should, without question, be restricted… therefore, I suggest that for the foreseeable future, only women of extraordinary talent be accepted at the school.”
The women in this chapter – Friedl Dicker, Ilse Fehling, and Lou Scheper – were of extraordinary talent.
Lilly Reich (1885-1947)
p.107 – Lilly Reich was forty-seven years old when she assumed a leading position at the Bauhaus in Dessau in 1932: she was an independent woman who already had a long-standing, self-contained, and successful career as interior designer, exhibition and furniture designer, and as we would say today, fashion designer, behind her.
p.109 – Mies van der Rohe, who had been director of the Bauhaus in Dessau since 1930, proposed her to the Masters’ Council. Lilly Reich also brought a new innovation to the Bauhaus whereby she understood fashion to be an integral component of design and so extended the meaning of the term Gesamtkunstwerk, as the art historian Sigrid Wortman Weltge explained in 1993. Yet, when Lilly Reich took up her position at the Bauhaus on January 5, 1932, she was a t first met with criticism. She was a very highly qualified designer but was unable to weave.
Marianne Brandt (1893-1983)
p.118 – “At first, I was not accepted with pleasure – there was no place for a woman in a metal workshop, they felt. They admitted this to me later in and meanwhile expressed their displeasure by giving me all sorts of dull, dreary work. How many little hemispheres did I most patiently hammer out of brittle new silver, thinking that was the way it had to be and all beginnings are hard. Later things settled down, and we got along well together.” (Marianne Brandt in Letter to the Younger Generation, 1970)
Ise Gropius (1897-1983)
p.137 – From 1924 to 1928, she invested great energy in publicity work, establishing and maintaining contact with the press, sponsors, and supporters of the Bauhaus. “I never entered one of the workshops as my special talent lay more in the realm of literature, which made me a natural employee of my husband” (addendum to diary). In this she clearly developed a high level of journalistic professionalism.
p.8 – Apart from a few exceptions, women did not have access to study art at academies in the nineteenth century. They could only take private lessons and had to pay much more for these lessons than men. The Grossherzogliche Sächsische Kunstgewerbeschule (Grand Ducal Saxon School of Arts and Crafts) in Weimar was among the few academies which accepted female students before the founding of the Weimar Republic. In the winter semester 1912-1913 there were fifty-five women registered and ninety-nine men.
The expression “decorative artist” or “decorative arts” apart from its neutral, objective meaning was applied, as demonstrated by the art historian Magdalena Droste, in a pejorative, segregating manner to mean “female” (superficial or dilettante). Even Bauhaus director Gropius warned of “decorative arts dilettantism.”
p.9 – the English Arts and Crafts movement, which ha in the last third of the nineteenth century declared war on academic art on the one hand, and on mass-production of crafts on the other, and which aspired to a synthesis between painting, architecture, and crafts. The most famous representative of this movement was William Morris, a country-house builder and wallpaper designer who countered the established school of thought by which textile work was dismissed as “mere” female activity.
The designated gender-specific tuition fee regulation [in the first year of the Bauhaus], according to which gentlemen were to pay 150 marks and ladies 180 marks, was no longer applicable in the provisional budget for 1919-20. Most young women, who began their studies at the Weimar Bauhaus in 1919, had already completed a training course in a craft or educational subject. Eighty-four female and seventy-nine male applicants registered at the Bauhaus in the summer semester of 1919, attracted by the visionary character of the school and the possibility of acquiring a concrete occupation. In his first speech, Gropius proclaimed: “No difference between the beautiful and the strong sex. Absolute equality but also absolutely equal obligation to the work of all craftsmen.”
p.10 – Gropius feared early on that the large number of women would harm the school’s reputation and recommended not to undertake “anymore unnecessary experiments,” and made the recommendation that “immediately following acceptance, an exact selection be made, above all among those of the more strongly represented female sex.” Gerhard Marcks, ceramics form master, argued clearly in favour of “accepting as few women as possible in the pottery workshop, in both their interest and in the interest of the workshop.” Carl Zaubitzer, head of graphic printing, likewise thought it better “for the future, to keep the female sex away from the printshop.” The gifted artist Johanna Hummel was successfully ousted from the metal workshop following her application by being forbidden to sell her works herself, although it was obvious that she needed the income to live on. It was cleat that the masters feared that female students would take valuable employment away from their male counterparts. Some women nevertheless succeeded in achieving positions in these male domains, for example, Dörte Helm and Lou Scheper in mural painting.
As handweaving was generally classed as a craft and took last place in the hierarchy of art and craft, it seemed logically consistent that this workshop be led by a woman. The Masters’ Council hoped in vain that the women’s class would solve the “female problem.” The weaving workshop soon became one of the most productive workshops and also had such commercial success that it took on a representative character for the entire Bauhaus.
p.12 – Marianne Brandt, who ran the metal workshop [in Dessau] and developed prototypes for industry with great success, was bullied out of the workshop by her younger fellow student, Hin Bredendiek. He then took on a professorship in Chicago during the Nazi period. She disappeared into domestic “emigration” at her parents’ house in Chemnitz.
In time, the number of female students at the Bauhaus dropped. In the summer semester of 1922, there were fifty-two women and ninety-five men; in the winter semester 1924-25, thirty-two women and sixty-eight men. This can certainly be attributed to the Bauhaus’ move away from crafts and towards technical experiments. However, some of the women, among them Alma Buscher, Marianne Brandt, Otti Berger, and Anni Albers, were delighted to follow the new path and were very successful with their industrial prototypes.
p.13 – The focus on architecture and the dismantling of the workshop system under the authoritarian leadership of Mies van der Rohe finally led to a further drop in female student numbers. In the winter semester of 1932-33 there were only twenty-five women and ninety men at the Bauhaus in Berlin.
Between Craft Tradition, Educational Reformism, and Free Art: Teachers and Students of the First Generation
p.14 – Among the approximately forty-five Bauhaus teachers in Weimar and the thirty-five in Dessau, there were in each case six women, including teachers. A mere three of these women held leading positions in the weaving workshop during the entire Bauhaus period. The teachers of the first generation were Helene Börner, workshop master in Weimar; Gunta Stölzl, a teacher of the second generation as young master in Dessau; and Lilly Reich, externally appointed head of weaving and development in Dessau and Berlin. Lilly Reich was, among twelve male colleagues, the only woman in Berlin.
Helene Börner (1870-1938)
p.23 – Helene Börner (1870-1938) was invited by Henry van de Velde to teach at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Weimar in 1904. From October 1906, Helene Börner taught Swedish weaving and embroidery. In 1909 she also took over the running of the carpet workshop.
p.24 – With the merging of the Kunstgewerbeschule with the Kunsthochschule (fine arts college) under the Bauhaus in 1919, Helene Börner’s workshop was taken over by the Bauhaus in its old form. The first craftspeople appointed by the Bauhaus, Helene Börner and Otto Dorfner (printing workshop), effectively operated their own workshops as before while being contractually bound to the Bauhaus.
Gunta Stölzl (1897-1983)
p.45 – Bauhaus artist Anni Albers, who studied with Gunta Stölzl in Weimar, remembered it thus: “There was no proper teacher for textile work, we had no proper classes. Today people say only: They learned all this at the Bauhaus! At the beginning we learned nothing at all. I learned a lot from Gunta, who was a fantastic teacher. We sat there and simply tried things out.” From 1920 the work in the weaving workshop was more tightly organized, and six-hour working day agreed upon. The motives behind this were primarily economic ones, as it was necessary to sell the products in order to reduce the costs of the Bauhaus.
p.47 – Gunta Stölzl developed new syllabuses in Dessau, since the opening of the architecture department in 1927 demanded of the weaving workshop technically perfect modern products. The workshop took on ever-bigger orders, for example the fitting out of the theater café in Dessau with curtains and wall coverings. Alongside this, identical blankets were woven for the students’ hall of residence according to a design by Gunta Stölzl, furniture fabrics were produced for Marcel Breuer’s tubular steel chairs, and later the new Gewerkschaftsschule (Trade Union School) in Bernau was also furnished. Selling exhibitions also took place at the Leipzig trade fairs, which meant that the workshop had to cope with an extremely heavy workload.
Anni Albers (1899-1994)
p.50 – “Every beginner should be afforded this freedom of creativity. Courage is a key factor in every form of artistic creative process, it can best unfold when it is not curtailed too early by knowledge.” (Anni Albers, Die Werkstatt der Weberei [The Weaving Workshop])
p.51 – She rented a simple room in Weimar, applied to the Bauhaus and was, however, at first turned down. Nevertheless, she stayed and fell in love with Josef Albers, who had studied at the Bauhaus since fall 1920. He was eleven years her senior, a trained artist. She convinced him to help her in a second attempt, and it worked. Anni Fleischmann began her studies at the Weimar Bauhaus on April 21, 1922. She received basic instruction from Muche and in the second semester took Itten’s preliminary course and introduction to artistic design.
p.52 – In the third semester she turned up in the “Women’s Department,” the weaving workshop, and felt out of place. “I considered weaving too womanish. I was looking for the right occupation and so I began weaving without any great enthusiasm, as this choice caused the least comment.”
Gertrud Arndt (1903-2000)
p.56 – “They all went to the weaving workshop, whether they wanted to or not. Yes, that was simply the way out… I never wanted to weave. It was absolutely not my aim.” (Gertrud Arndt)
p.57 – Gertrud Hantschk wanted to study architecture but she was the only woman on the construction course and, according to her own statement, felt lost there. […] She joined the weaving workshop. She viewed training in this workshop as her only possibility of continuing at the Bauhaus, as a woman. She began with the creation of a rug design for Gropius’ office in Weimar, which had already been redesigned for the great Bauhaus exhibition of 1923.
A further meticulously painted rug design from 1924 was especially difficult to realize due to the thirty-seven colours, as the threads were no longer available to buy: “I had to dye all the wool myself – without knowledge and without help. It was awful,” she remembered in her biography for the Vorwerk company brochure in 1993.
p.58 – in 1927 Gertrude Hantschk, together with Mila Lederer, protested against the school exhibiting pieces marked “Bauhaus” without mention of the individual student’s name. Otti Berger objected much later.
In 1927 Gertrud Hantschk married Bauhaus student Alfred Arndt. He passed his journeyman’s examination in 1924 and had since lived and worked as a freelance architect in Probstzella, where he created the largest (until 1927) surviving Bauhaus ensemble, the Haus des Volkes in Thuringia. He worked and took his master’s exam at the Bauhaus in 1928. In 1929, the couple moved to Dessau where Alfred Arndt became full-time Bauhaus master in the construction workshop.
p.59 – Gertrud Arndt took part in Bauhaus events and also too the photography course which had been newly established by Walter Peterhans in 1929, but was not fully integrated in the day-to-day work.
Hammer and Chisel, Drawing Board and Paintbrush, Costume and Patent: Multi-talents in Painting, Graphics, Sculpture, and Theatre Design
p.84 – On September 2, 1920, director Walter Gropius wrote to the masters of the council who represented the Bauhaus teachers: “The ratio of male to female students is such that the acceptance of women should, without question, be restricted… therefore, I suggest that for the foreseeable future, only women of extraordinary talent be accepted at the school.”
The women in this chapter – Friedl Dicker, Ilse Fehling, and Lou Scheper – were of extraordinary talent.
Lilly Reich (1885-1947)
p.107 – Lilly Reich was forty-seven years old when she assumed a leading position at the Bauhaus in Dessau in 1932: she was an independent woman who already had a long-standing, self-contained, and successful career as interior designer, exhibition and furniture designer, and as we would say today, fashion designer, behind her.
p.109 – Mies van der Rohe, who had been director of the Bauhaus in Dessau since 1930, proposed her to the Masters’ Council. Lilly Reich also brought a new innovation to the Bauhaus whereby she understood fashion to be an integral component of design and so extended the meaning of the term Gesamtkunstwerk, as the art historian Sigrid Wortman Weltge explained in 1993. Yet, when Lilly Reich took up her position at the Bauhaus on January 5, 1932, she was a t first met with criticism. She was a very highly qualified designer but was unable to weave.
Marianne Brandt (1893-1983)
p.118 – “At first, I was not accepted with pleasure – there was no place for a woman in a metal workshop, they felt. They admitted this to me later in and meanwhile expressed their displeasure by giving me all sorts of dull, dreary work. How many little hemispheres did I most patiently hammer out of brittle new silver, thinking that was the way it had to be and all beginnings are hard. Later things settled down, and we got along well together.” (Marianne Brandt in Letter to the Younger Generation, 1970)
Ise Gropius (1897-1983)
p.137 – From 1924 to 1928, she invested great energy in publicity work, establishing and maintaining contact with the press, sponsors, and supporters of the Bauhaus. “I never entered one of the workshops as my special talent lay more in the realm of literature, which made me a natural employee of my husband” (addendum to diary). In this she clearly developed a high level of journalistic professionalism.
January 2, 2018
I'm really glad this book exists. All of the women it profiles deserve the recognition and more. However, I was hoping that it would serve as a primer on the Bauhaus, through the lens of the women within. It failed to do that for me. It is merely a series of profiles of women artists that assume prior knowledge of the Bauhaus and the cultural conditions of the time. So, meh.
March 22, 2012
Fascinating subject matter, but the translation from the German is a bit clunky.
April 4, 2020
I am so glad this book was made! I took a typography class a few years ago and chose to focus my project on Bauhaus. As I was doing research I kept coming across journal articles that briefly mentioned that women were all funneled into the weaving program, despite their artistic capabilities. Then I read about how admissions were skewed to keep the number of women low. But I wasn’t coming across much info about the women themselves so I set out to focus on them for my project. I pieced together whatever I could, but THANKFULLY, someone else was as frustrated as me about the lack of materials out there highlighting the incredible women artists at Bauhaus. No, this book is not so much a primer on Bauhaus, but it doesn’t need to be. It’s a complement to other materials you may have already read. It has a sole purpose of profiling the women at Bauhaus, and for that, I love it.
I referenced this book in my project and did a quick skim, but I finally decided to read it cover to cover. I’m once again utterly inspired but also mad as hell again at the egregious patriarchy and misogyny from the men (and some women) of Bauhaus.
I referenced this book in my project and did a quick skim, but I finally decided to read it cover to cover. I’m once again utterly inspired but also mad as hell again at the egregious patriarchy and misogyny from the men (and some women) of Bauhaus.
October 6, 2024
I don't know a lot about the Bauhaus, but I know even less about the women artists of the Bauhaus school. That, as it turns out, is not entirely an accident of history. It seems the Bauhaus was only too happy to exclude, downplay, and dismiss the women who designed for it. Enraging, but alas, not a suprise.
This book was a wonderful introduction to the amazingly rich work of these neglected artists. There is some spectacular stuff in here, and well worth a look!
This book was a wonderful introduction to the amazingly rich work of these neglected artists. There is some spectacular stuff in here, and well worth a look!
June 3, 2024
Vor langer Zeit erinnere ich mich, welches Buch ich als erstes in englischer Sprache las. Es war The Painted Veil von Somerset Maugham. Heute lese ich mein erstes deutschsprachiges Buch — Die Bauhaus-Frauen. Je schwieriger es am Anfang ist, desto leichter wird es am Ende, aber das Ergebnis ist das gleiche.
April 11, 2024
Interesting overview of women who were part of the Bauhaus school. - their art, influence and the discrimination and channeling they encountered into weaving, textiles and other “womanly” arts. The transition from the German is not great and sometimes very stilted.
September 8, 2015
Relegadas en la historia del diseño un grupo importante de mujeres sentó precedente al estudiar en esta mítica escuela.
Durante el verano de 1919 la Bauhaus abrió sus puertas en Weimar, nacía una de las más importantes escuelas en la historia del diseño, sin embargo pocos saben que solicitaron ingresar como estudiantes una mayor cantidad de mujeres que de hombres. Gropius, quien fue el director fundador de la institución pregonaba que la naciente escuela era sin duda la más democrática y liberal de las academias de la época, discurso que tuvo que moderar para que ésta pudiera sobrevivir ante la enorme presión de la sociedad de la época.
Ya a finales del siglo XIX el hecho que las mujeres se entusiasmaran con el arte y que lo estudiaran comenzó a ser algo aceptado, aún así las labores artesanales productivas les estaban prohibidas, no era algo bien visto en sociedad. La fina línea entre industria, artes aplicadas y artes plásticas definía precisamente el espacio en el que la Bauhaus encontró su razón de ser y por supuesto en el que se desarrollaría la naciente disciplina del diseño como hoy lo conocemos.
Este singular volumen les abre un espacio a las mujeres que participaron en el nacimiento de esa disciplina que hoy conocemos como diseño. Desde sus trincheras lograron una pequeña revolución, en particular en el taller de cerámica y desde los telares. Una revolución que llega hasta mis mismos orígenes, al ser mi madre la primera egresada de la carrera de Diseño Industrial en México, una mujer en una maravillosa coincidencia.
La autora recopila la biografía de 20 mujeres que a lo largo de las tres etapas de la escuela forjaron las bases para que el mundo del diseño se abriera democráticamente a todos los géneros, una realidad a la que estamos acostumbrados y cuyos orígenes podemos conocer a fondo en las páginas de este pequeño tesoro.
Durante el verano de 1919 la Bauhaus abrió sus puertas en Weimar, nacía una de las más importantes escuelas en la historia del diseño, sin embargo pocos saben que solicitaron ingresar como estudiantes una mayor cantidad de mujeres que de hombres. Gropius, quien fue el director fundador de la institución pregonaba que la naciente escuela era sin duda la más democrática y liberal de las academias de la época, discurso que tuvo que moderar para que ésta pudiera sobrevivir ante la enorme presión de la sociedad de la época.
Ya a finales del siglo XIX el hecho que las mujeres se entusiasmaran con el arte y que lo estudiaran comenzó a ser algo aceptado, aún así las labores artesanales productivas les estaban prohibidas, no era algo bien visto en sociedad. La fina línea entre industria, artes aplicadas y artes plásticas definía precisamente el espacio en el que la Bauhaus encontró su razón de ser y por supuesto en el que se desarrollaría la naciente disciplina del diseño como hoy lo conocemos.
Este singular volumen les abre un espacio a las mujeres que participaron en el nacimiento de esa disciplina que hoy conocemos como diseño. Desde sus trincheras lograron una pequeña revolución, en particular en el taller de cerámica y desde los telares. Una revolución que llega hasta mis mismos orígenes, al ser mi madre la primera egresada de la carrera de Diseño Industrial en México, una mujer en una maravillosa coincidencia.
La autora recopila la biografía de 20 mujeres que a lo largo de las tres etapas de la escuela forjaron las bases para que el mundo del diseño se abriera democráticamente a todos los géneros, una realidad a la que estamos acostumbrados y cuyos orígenes podemos conocer a fondo en las páginas de este pequeño tesoro.
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