The modernist German designer Marianne Brandt was one of the few women associated with the Bauhaus to make her reputation outside the traditional arts and crafts sectors related to women such as textiles, weaving and pottery. Her metalware tea and light fittings from the 1920s have become widely known, many of which were produced under licence from the mid-1980s by the Italian company Alessi. She created a variety of stylish everyday items, using modern and conventional techniques, ranging from electroplated brass tea infusers to chrome desk sets, as well as ceiling and beside lamps.
Education
From 1911 to 1917 Brandt studied fine art at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Saxony. She worked as a freelance artist for several years after graduation. She enrolled at the Bauhaus in 1923, studying the Vorkurs (Foundation Course) offered by Josef Albers and László Moholy-Nagy before moving to the metal workshop in 1925–6, where she served as manager from 1927 to 1929. During the Bauhaus years, her domestic metalware designs, like many of her academic peers, were influenced by the abstract, geometrical forms of Constructivism and De Stijl. They were, however, essentially handmade prototypes for industrial production.
Biography
Her lighting designs included the adjustable ceiling light (1926) designed by Hans Przyrembel for the new Bauhaus buildings at Dessau, and the Kandem bedside table lamp (1927). After graduating from the Bauhaus in 1929, she worked briefly at the Gropius studio and then at the Ruppelwerk factory in Gotha from 1930 to 1933 as Head of the Decorative Arts Department becoming a freelance artist until 1939.
Several of her lighting designs have been put into production by companies such as Körting & Burton and Leipzig Leutzch, both from Leipzig. After the Second World War, at the institution’s director Mart Stam’s invitation, she taught at the Ceramics Department of the School of Applied Arts in Dresden from 1949 to 1951. She then moved to the Institute of Industrial Arts in Berlin-Weissensee, where she stayed from 1951 to 1954, before resuming her fine artwork.
Works
Ashtray 1924
An abstract brass and nickel plated ashtray made for the Bauhaus metal workshop in 1924 was one of her most striking designs. This beautifully crafted piece, which combines sperical and semicircular shapes, transformed a typical household item into a work of art and encapsulated the Bauhaus ideas of functionalism and elegance.
Sources
Hoban, S., & Payne, A. (2001). Miller’s collecting modern design. Mitchell Beazley.
Woodham, J. (2004). Brandt, Marianne. In A Dictionary of Modern Design. : Oxford University Press. Retrieved 10 Feb. 2021, from https://www-oxfordreference-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/view/10.1093/acref/9780192800978.001.0001/acref-9780192800978-e-121.
More German Designers
-
Friedrich Adler (1878 – 1942) German sculptor and designer
First designer to work with bakelite Friedrich Adler (1878 – 1942) was a German designer, educator, and artist. He was well-known for his work in the Art Nouveau and Art Deco genres of metals design. He was also the first to employ bakelite in his designs. He created his designs with a wide range of things and materials.Read More →
-
Margaret Leischner (1908 – 1970) German textile designer
She began teaching weaving at the Bauhaus in 1931. She worked at the Dresdener Deutsche Werkstatten in 1931, designing woven textiles, and was the head of the weaving department at the Berlin Modeschule from 1932 to 1936. She worked as the head designer for Gateshead, a British fabric manufacturer.Read More →
-
AEG (Allgemeine Elektrizitäts Gesellschaft) (established 1883)
Engineer Emil Rathenau founded AEG as the Deutsche Edison Gesellschaft für angewandte Elektrizitäts (DEG) two years after seeing Edison’s lighting at the Paris Exposition Internationale de l’Electricité in 1881.Read More →
-
Peter Behrens (1868 – 1940) – German architect and designer
Peter Brehens (1868 – 1940) was a German graphic artist, architect and designer. He studied at the Karlsruhe and in Düsseldorf and Munich.Read More →
-
Anchor Blocks – 19th Century construction toy
Anchor Blocks were a German system of building blocks that were popular as a children’s construction toy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, notably in Europe. Dr F. Ad. Richter in Rudolstadt, Germany, began developing and manufacturing the system in 1879. The concept was based on the FROEBEL block system, which significantly impacted Frank Lloyd WRIGHT’s design philosophy.Read More →
-
Theodor Bogler (1897-1968) German ceramicist and designer
Theodor Bogler (1897 – 1968) studied at the Bauhaus and the University of Munich. He designed a 1923 mocha machine in ceramics for serial production. His earthenware kitchen containers by Velten-Vordamm ceramic factory were shown at the Bauhaus Exhibition.Read More →
-
Frei Otto (1925 – 2015) German Architect designs that soared
The late German architect Frei Otto’s work can be seen all over the world in pavilions and sports stadiums. His impact on the Olympics is huge, from the design of Rio’s Maracana stadium to the tent-like roofs he made for Munich in 1972. He influenced a generation of British architects, including Norman Foster, Michael Hopkins and Nicholas Grimshaw. Otto’s influence can be seen in the lightweight fabric roof of Lord’s cricket ground (1987) and the bubble-like domes of the Eden Project (2000).Read More →
-
Hermann Junger (b.1928) Bauhaus influenced jewellery
Hermann Junger was one of the best goldsmiths in Germany. His creative jewellery had a big impact not only in Germany, but also all over Europe and the U.S. He studied at the Staatliche Zeichenakademie, Hanau.Read More →
-
Christian Dell (1893 – 1974) German metalworker designer
Christian Dell (1893–1974) was a German silversmith. Dell was born in Hesse’s Offenbach am Main. In the 1920s, Dell ran the metal workshop at the Bauhaus University, and his designs are, in line with the Bauhaus style, characterised by modern shapes and functionality. After his successful stint as an industrial designer, Dell returned in the late 1940s to his original profession as a silversmith.Read More →
-
Erna Zarges-Dürr (1907-2002) – German silversmith
Erna Zarges-Dürr (1907-2002) was a German silversmith. She was professionally active Pforzheim, Leipzig, Berlin. and Stuttgart. Between 1924-27, she trained at Bruckmann und Söhne, Heilbronn, as the first women in the silversmiths’ department. From 1927, she studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule, Pforzheim, under Theodor Wende and others. Read More →
-
Hermann Zapf (1918 – 2015) German Typographer and Calligrapher
Hermann Zapf (1918 – 2015) was born and educated in Nuremberg. Gudrun Zapf-von Hesse, a calligrapher and typeface designer, was his wife. Palatino, Optima, and Zapfino are some of the typefaces he developed.Read More →
-
Trude Petri-Rabin (1906 – 1989) German Ceramicist
From 1927 she studied porcelain at Verinigdten Staatsshulen für freie und angewandte Kunst (United State Schools for Free and Applied Arts), Berlin, and Staatliche Porzellan-Manufakture, Berlin (Royal Porcelain Factory, Berlin).Read More →
-
Otto Zapf German product and furniture designer
Otto Zapf has created an essential system of furniture designs. Including the Zapf Office System by Knoll and 7500 workstations by Pacific Telesis. He and Dieter Rams designed their first furniture in the 1960s and 1970s.Read More →
-
Franz Rickert (1904-1991) German Silversmith
He worked as a silversmith from 1926 and became one of the most important silversmiths in Munich and an outstanding enameler. 1935-72, he taught at the Staatsschule (later Akademie) fur angewandte Kunst in Munich. In the 1950s and 1960s, he designed numerous religious objects.Read More →
-
Ferdinand Kramer (1898 – 1985) German Architect and Designer
Kramer’s father was the owner of the most well-known of Frankfurt hat shops. In 1916, immediately after school, Kramer was drawn into military service and remained a soldier through the end of the First World War. The following year he trained at the Bauhaus for a few months before quitting, disillusioned with the technical level of the training, then began a three-year architectural study in Munich with Theodor Fischer.Read More →
-
Arzberg Porcelain – prestigious German design
Arzberg is regarded as one of the most prestigious porcelain design houses in the world. The definition of good design. Arzberg combines aesthetics, functionality, and durability.Read More →
-
Hermann Gretsch (1895 – 1950) designer for Arzberg
Hermann Gretsch was a German architect, engineer and product designer. In the 1930s, Gretsch worked for the Porzellanfabrik Arzberg.Read More →
-
Konstantin Grcic Unveils – CUP Chair For Plank | 🇩🇪 German Design
For travellers, the benefits of plastic shell suitcases have come to be appreciated. They are extremely light and flexible, yet powerful and good looking. Suitcases made of thin vacuum-formed plastic sheets have completely transformed the product category. As a designer of the furniture, Konstantin Grcic was surprised by this ingenuity and the suitability of the modern chair covers for production and performance. Read More →
-
Herbert Hirche (1910 – 2002) German Industrial Designer
Hirche’s work was also shown at national and international fairs and exhibitions. These include the Milan Triennale in 1957 and Expo 58, the 1958 Brussels World’s Fair. IRead More →
-
Emmy Roth (1885 – 1942) German / Israeli Silversmith
In 1916, she established her workshop in Berlin-Charlottenburg. Her early work was influenced by the Baroque, but her later work was more straightforward, as evidenced by her fruit dish in The Studio, 1929.Read More →
You may be interested in
Marianne Straub Swiss weaver and designer – Encyclopedia of Design
Marianne Straub was a Swiss designer and weaver and designer she was born in Amriswil. But her career grew in Britain from the time she entered Bradford Technical College (in the middle of the Yorkshire wool industry) in 1932 to expand her knowledge of powerloom weaving.
Lilly Reich – German interior designer and furniture and exhibition designer – Encyclopedia of Design
Lilly Reich (1885 – 1947) was a German interior designer and furniture and exhibition designer. Reich was born into a wealthy family of factory-owners. She learned embroidery and studied at the Wiener Werkstätte in Vienna under Josef Hoffmann in 1908. In 1910 she became a pupil of Else Oppler-Legband (b.
The Bauhaus Fusion of the Arts – Encyclopedia of Design
German School’s Wide Influence on Modern Design In an enormous release of creative energy in Germany that followed World War I, a good many artists, hopeful that a better world could be made out of the ruins of a devastating war, became possessed of a new idealism (The Bauhaus FusionRead More →