Gunta Stölzl > Literature > Articles and Essays

Articles and Essays Galleries

Jack Lenor Larsen, October 1999 : This article was written for Chrsitopher Farr's exhibition of Stölzl remakes. How pleased I was, at the vernissage of my 1966 exhibition at Zurich, to find a coterie of pre-war artists and designers including Max Bill, but especially Gunta Stölzl, then still active in her Zurich studio. As the Larsen international headquarters were in Zurich and I there often, the two of us had time to share the experience common to two custom handweavers. As most of Gunta's Zurich commissions had been for functional, muted upholstery cloths, I was able to select from their remnants a collection of samples for New York's Museum of Modern Art. Our greatest joy, however, was in feasting our eyes on her compositions painted in glowing tempera for woven hangings and rugs. In spite of their small format these were complexly asymmetrical works. Almost always the colourings were mouthwatering, and as sunny, as softly sophisticated Mughal miniatures. Here were tensions between dominant and secondary shades, with other introductions and refrains, with the extremes and bridges - all entirely in keeping with her high-keyed tonalities and soft edged geometry. Still, it was not until - decades later - when her daughter brought me her original folios that I realised their present day importance. For here, momentarily dormant, was an early 20th century art form both personal and appropriate. We spoke of possibilities for exhibition, for publication, and - most of all - woven realisation. But the rug weavers I knew were too large or too commercial. Still later, when I was commissioned by Larsen Carpet to realise with Tibetan weavers Anni Albers' Bauhaus designs, it came to me that Gunta's compositions would be best realised by Asian handweavers. Still, no solution came until I found Christopher Farr's London galleries full of modern kilims and handknotted rugs woven in Anatolia. Their glistening, wiry fibre from sheep bred for millennia to produce the best carpet wools added to their quality. So did kettle dyeing streaky yarns handspun from ungraded fleeces. All the organic richness was here, offset by the meticulous craftsmanship found in antique rugs. And here, it seemed, were the entrepreneurs one could trust with Stölzl's repertoire. Right on! For here we have a design bank begun in the early 20th century, now timely and timeless for the 21st. Jack Lenor Larsen New York, October 7, 1999 The article is also available on the Christopher Farr web site: http://www.cfarr.co.uk/past_exhibitions2.htm

Jack Lenor Larsen, October 1999

Sigrid Wortmann Weltge - Gunta Stölzl, 1993 : Chapter 3 in Sigrid Wortmann Weltge's book, "Bauhaus Textiles: Women Artists and the Weaving Workshop". Gunta Stölzl Sigrid Wortmann Weltge Gunta Stölzl was the dominant presence in the Weaving Workshop. In facts its evolution paralleled her own development. The student who entered the Bauhaus in 1919 would leave it in 1931 as a consummate professional, the only female Bauhaus master. Stölzl has been described as personally modest yet strong-willed and tenacious professionally, and as totally committed to her goals. From 1914 to 1916 she studied painting, ceramics and art history at the School of Applied Arts in Munich. During the following two years she served as a Red Cross nurse behind the front lines and in 1919 resumed her studies for an additional term. Actively involved in curriculum reform at her school, she encountered the Bauhaus manifesto which impressed her so much that she traveled to Weimar to meet Gropius. Stölzl vividly remembered her arrival: "what did I find? A small group of students, more men than girls. A big building with studios which were partially occupied by the old academy, next to it large empty rooms, a workshop building, a cafeteria, a studio building for students, but only for men." She spent the summer of 1919 first in a glass workshop and then a mural-painting class before being accepted, on a trial basis, onto Johannes Itten's preliminary course. She was fully matriculated in the spring of 1920 and by the autumn had received a full scholarship. Stölzl claimed that she co-founded the "Women's Department" during her first year. It is certain that by 1920 she was active in the Weaving Workshop where she played a leading part from the outset. Her enthusiasm, vitality and the seriousness with which she pursued her quest for knowledge set an example to the other students and made her an undisputed role model. Anni Albers thought of her as the quintessential weaver, as "having almost an animal feeling for textiles." She was passionate in her concern for the Weaving Workshop unlike any of the masters, and could thus make it hers almost from the beginning. Stölzl, a student among other students in those days, immediately gave direction to the workshop by exploring the craft and passing on her findings. With admiration for Stölzl, Albers recalled those early days: "There was no real teacher in textiles. We had no formal classes. Now people say to me: 'you learned it all at the Bauhaus'! We did not learn a thing in the beginning. I learned from Gunta, who was a great teacher. We sat down and tried to do it. Sometimes we sat together and tried to solve problems of construction." Stölzl's almost apologetic remark that students were autodidacts has often been repeated, but it should be clarified to mean "technical autodidacts". Nor should the much maligned early products of the workshop have to suffer from comparison with the later industrial textiles. It is true that some of them attest to the weavers' groping attempts to learn the craft without professional instruction; their execution is often amateurish. Selvages are wavy, the fabrics buckle, they are too tight. Yet many are remarkably well woven. The Weimar textiles have to be examined from a completely different point of view, not a technical but a visual one, for most of their creators already had a background in the arts. Like Gunta Stölzl, almost all female students arrived at the Bauhaus with previous schooling. They were an exceptional group of pioneers at a time when educating women was not the norm. Barred from traditional art academies, they had studied at schools of applied arts and crafts, trade institutions and with individual professors. All of them were passionately interested in painting. Monica Bella-Broner simply said: "We were all addicted to arts." Georg Muche confirmed this statement in his autobiography. Itten's students, he said, did not fit the later perception of Bauhäusler as modern, pared down designers. Instead he said of them: "they were and remained art enthusiasts." What attracted them to the Bauhaus in the first place was the lure of the painters: "Klee and Kandinsky, those were the ones." - not instruction in weaving. A lifetime later Anni Albers remembered: "Weaving? Weaving I thought was too sissy. I was looking for a real job: I went into weaving unenthusiastically, as merely the least objectionable choice." Some women, such as Dörte Helm, Kitty Fischer, Else Mögelin, Margarete Willers and Ida Kerkovius, were accomplished artists by the time they arrived at the Bauhaus. In fact, Kerkovius, who was one of the older students, had been Johannes Itten's teacher when he was still a young art student in 1913 and 1914. She was a member of the "Hölzel circle", a group of artists gathered around the painter Adolf Hölzel, who was best known for his contributions to colour theory. Itten formed a lifelong friendship with Kerkovius and recalled that at first he had found her paintings "rather strange" - a verdict later to be repeated by the Nazis who included her in their roster of degenerate artists. However, Itten praised her as a teacher and kept his sketchbooks from those lessons. "The most precious for me . . .", he wrote in his memoirs, was her "analysis of compositions by Giotto and pictures by Cezanne in which the same principles occurred as in Giotto." Far from being novices, then, most female students came with an impressive background of visual knowledge. Like Gunta Stölzl, who toured Italy in the summer of 1921 to see the painting and architecture that she had studied in Munich, they were acquainted with the masterpieces of the past. The Bauhaus attracted them precisely because they admired its painters and because they were longing to be a part of what they clearly perceived as the avant-garde. The fact that Gropius appointed painters and not craftsmen to head the workshops has been endlessly debated and either hailed as a stroke of genius or decried as out of touch with reality. It was a dichotomy akin to his initial aspiration to elevate crafts to the level of art, although art was perceived as independent and not teachable. As a method of attracting gifted students it worked. The allure of the painters proved irresistible to a bright, modern youth, and women were no exception. Contemporary art proclaimed its faith in the individual and, therefore, in them. On the heels of Germany's devastating defeat art seemed to be the only way left to affect society at large. Notebooks, diaries and letters attest to the fecund atmosphere of the early years. Nowhere else had these young women been exposed to philosophies like those of their great Bauhaus teachers. Kandinsky's advice that they should discard old ways of looking went hand in hand with Gropius's dictum that the mind should be cleared of all previous knowledge, in order to approach every problem as if for the first time. Paul Klee's leitmotif, visual thinking, was absorbed like gospel by the students, who nicknamed him, after all, "the dear Lord". Johannes Itten opened up a whole new world of emotional and intellectual perceptions on the path to free exploration. Festivities were carefully planned according to themes. Evenings at the Feiningers' were filled with music. "Even today", wrote Gunta Stölzl in 1968, "I believe that most important of all was life itself. It was brimful with impressions, experiences, encounters and friendships which have lasted over decades." Under Gunta Stölzl's unofficial direction - neither Helene Börner nor Georg Muche was able to advance the students technically - problems were overcome in a remarkably short time. Stölzl's quick grasp and understanding of the looms' possibilities, her natural affinity for the materials and her love of exploration rapidly transformed the workshop into a functioning entity. In March 1922 she took a dye course at a textile school in Krefeld with fellow-student Benita Otte and soon afterwards she activated the dye laboratory, which had been idle since van de Velde's days. In 1923 the Weaving Workshop participated in the first official Bauhaus Exhibition by furnishing the experimental Haus am Horn with textiles which were singled out for favourable mention by the critics. The textiles of the Weimar period, far from being failed industrial specimens, were the first to reject traditional tapestry-weaving in favour of a whole new design vocabulary. They were pioneering works in their own right and must be viewed as logical translations of the art education received by the students. After all, the Bauhaus boasted two teachers who were also among the most prominent proponents of abstract art in the twenties, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. Another, the Dutch artist Theo van Doesburg, who had aspirations to join the school, made his headquarters in Weimar in 1921 and contributed to the intellectual ferment. All three men demonstrated extraordinary facility with the written word, which was articulated in profusion if not always with clarity. A torrent of theories was tested on students and staff alike. Many weavers have credited Paul Klee with their understanding of colour and form even though some of his ideas were digested only much later. "One of his classes", Anni Albers remembered, "was so far over my head that I didn't understand anything and had to leave. I was not yet ready for Klee and his thinking." Georg Muche, less of a theorist, kept to himself, working on his own development as an artist, while Johannes Itten had a profound effect on the students in these early years. Although vastly different in temperament, Kandinsky and Itten were both passionate about the artist's "inner self" and communicated this message to their students. Itten's greatest gift to the weavers, however, was an awareness, a heightened sensitivity to the material itself - all material. How could these artistic tenets, experienced on a daily basis, fail to be applied in the Weaving Workshop? Early works by Gunta Stölzl, Martha Erps and others show convincingly that the students had internalized the new visual language and were able to express themselves fluently. Many Weimar textiles display a sophistication of design unique in the history of weaving. A decade earlier Kandinsky had written in "concerning the Spiritual in art": "The more abstract is form, the more clear and direct is its appeal…. The more an artist uses these abstracted forms, the deeper and more confidently will he advance into the kingdom of the abstracted." The weavers, in producing textiles of pure abstracted form, were heeding his advice. That neither weaving nor women could easily "advance into the kingdom of the abstract" was yet another lesson to learn.

Sigrid Wortmann Weltge - Gunta Stölzl, 1993

Anja Baumhoff - Gunta Stölzl, 1999 : A chapter in the Personalities section of the Bauhaus book, edited by Jeannine Fiedler and Peter Feierabend, published by Könemann in 1999 Gunta Stölzl Anja Baumhoff Gunta Stölzl was one of the most successful women in the Bauhaus movement and out-standing for her creativity, stubbornness and talent for organization. She identified herself fully with the school and became involved not only in the workshop, but also in the kitchen and the garden of the Bauhaus and in the often quite demanding task of organizing the parties. Before she transferred to the State Bauhaus, Gunta Stölzl had studied for eight semesters at the School of Applied Arts in Munich, under the well-known director Richard Riemerschmidt. Entering the Bauhaus after this represented a sideways step for her, but it was perhaps the most important step she ever took. This period of study, combined with her own talent, was the basis for her success in Weimar and Dessau. Although her career as the only female young master in the school is unusual, she was in many respects a typical Bauhaus woman. So who was Gunta Stölzl? Adelgunde Stölzl was born in Munich in 1897. Her father was a teacher who gave his children a reformed and liberal education. As part of this she studied at a high school for the daughters of professionals and finished successfully with her senior school certificate in 1913, following which she enrolled in the School of Applied Arts. She interrupted her studies and volunteered for war service as a Red Cross nursing assistant when she was only 17. After she had returned to her alma mater she became a member of the students' reform commission and became acquainted with Walter Gropius's Bauhaus manifesto, the front cover of which was illustrated by Lyonel Feininger's famous woodcut: “The motif of the Cathedral of socialism.” This prospectus inspired Gunta Stölzl to visit Weimar. The reforming ideas and the charisma of the director influenced her so strongly that for a second time she enrolled as a student, this time at the Bauhaus. Her diaries reveal early spiritual interests. Life-reforming ideas, such as those from the Wandervogel movement, made their mark on Gunta Stölzl and many other Bauhaus members, and formed the basis for both Bauhaus ideas and the special feeling of comradeship which colored their relations with each other. In contrast to most of the other students, who only stayed on average for three semesters, Gunta Stölzl stayed for 12 years at the Bauhaus, six of these as a student. Apart from her own personality, there were however other reasons relating to the structure of the otherwise male-dominated school which enabled Gunta Stölzl to pursue her career there. The women's class offered the only area of work where a woman could legitimately aspire to a senior position. Without this gender divide it would have been almost impossible for Gunta Stölzl to advance her claim for a high-ranking position. The existence of this dedicated women's section appeared to legitimize the fact that all the other areas such as cabinetmaking, wall painting, ceramics and metalwork were male preserves. There, women were only tolerated as an exception. In spite of her talent and her own dynamism, she did not always have an easy time, as she was not the protégée of any master. She did have allies amongst them, but no one to take up her cause directly. She was the only person in the Bauhaus to acquire her position by a vote in the group. Attitudes, opinions and the general climate were always of great importance in the small school. As a member of the Bauhaus from its earliest days, Gunta Stölzl attracted plenty of well-wishers who valued her hard work and ready helpfulness. In the 1925-1926 winter semester she was elevated to a senior position by the women students after a tenacious struggle. Ironically, to a certain extent and without wishing it, by becoming a token woman in a senior position she showed that women could make their way in the Bauhaus. Gunta Stölzl was not solely a weaver, however, now her activities also turned her toward teaching. When she was officially given the responsibility for running the complete weaving section, in June of 1927, she had no real experience of teaching. Although she had some success at this new activity, it soon became apparent that the Bauhaus concept of bringing together theoretical and practical work did not work out for a young master who was female. Paul Klee's teaching was irreplaceable, and Gunta Stölzl limited herself to practical activities in the workshop with the assistance of Kurt Wanke. There was plenty to be done there. Work in the workshop had to be restructured, and this was her strong point. In 1924 Johannes Itten had called her to Zurich to set up the Ontos workshops there. At the Bauhaus, Stölzl separated the work into teaching and production sections. Experiments were then carried out with new materials, looking for hard-wearing but reasonably priced fabrics for the wider market. In addition, pattern books for industry were created, so that the whole output of the workshop was made professional and cost-effective. Gunta Stölzl strove to implement the Bauhaus program in her workshop, although this was not always entirely successful. As the Dessau Bauhaus was more concerned with architecture, the fabrics had to complement the modern building styles and create a harmonious presence in the room. Individual handmade pieces were less common at this period. Later Gunta Stölzl lost her position in the same way that she had acquired it. A small group of dissatisfied students, supported by masters with right-wing sympathies, made life unbearable. She pre-empted dismissal by handing in her notice and resigned herself to leaving the school in 1931. This was followed by a difficult period. Two years previously she had married Bauhaus member Arieh Sharon, a left-wing Jewish architect, losing her German citizenship as a result. According to her passport she was now a Palestinian. In 1931 she moved to Switzerland, as none of her Bauhaus contacts had led to a new post in Germany. In Zurich she opened a small handweaving workshop with the former Bauhaus members Gertrud Preiswerk and Heinrich-Otto Hürlimann, S-P-H Stoffe (S-P-H Fabrics), but after a short time financial difficulties forced them to give up. The economic and political situation throughout Europe at this time was very difficult, and the possibilities of making a living out of arts and crafts were few. In spite of this Stölzl continued to run a small workshop called S+H Fabrics until 1937, with Hürlimann as her only partner. When this partnership also came to an end she moved to Florastrasse in Zurich and opened the handweaving shop Flora. She worked alone there for 36 years, until she gave up her workshop in 1967. The years in Switzerland were not trouble-free but she was finally able to become established. Probably her most successful year professionally was 1937, when the Diplôme Commémoratif was bestowed on her at the Paris International Exhibition. In her new homeland she became a member of the Society of Swiss Painters, Sculptors and Commercial Artists and of a Swiss business association. She took part regularly in exhibitions and fairs, supplied various firms with upholstery material and wall hangings and also worked for individual architects, such as Hans Fischli, for whose buildings she made coverings for walls and other surfaces, as well as for the National Germanic Museum in Nuremberg. Overall however she did not obtain as much as she would have liked of this close work with architects, which she particularly treasured. Her work inspired by Gobelin tapestries counts among the most important of her handcrafted works, although she supported herself predominantly with textiles for everyday living, such as upholstery or clothing fabrics. In the 1970s she devoted herself totally to the Gobelins work and through this gained increasing international recognition. With the rise of the feminist art history movement she became even more widely known and appreciated in the 1990s, not only for her unusual career pattern but also for her textiles. Gunta Stölzl's woven pieces are distinguished by steady, well-crafted work, and a rich variety of bindings. Her carpets breathe rhythm, carry you away with their many patterns, and cannot be pinned down to a horizontal or vertical Bauhaus scheme. On occasion there are motifs such as cows in a landscape, or as in her later work an ecclesiastical theme. The influence of Johannes Itten’s teachings on color contrast is particularly noticeable in her Bauhaus works. The vibrant, joyful colors in some of her early weaving is witness to the vital dynamism and energetic lifestyle of the Bauhaus members. The carpets evoke an atmosphere of jazz and expressive dancing and provide us with just a slight taste of how lively life may once have been at the Bauhaus.

Anja Baumhoff - Gunta Stölzl, 1999

Anja Baumhoff - The Token Woman Master, 1999 : A chapter in the Personalities section of the Bauhaus book, edited by Jeannine Fielder and Peter Feierabend, published by Könemann. The Token Woman Master Anja Baumhoff The names of Bauhaus masters such as Klee, Kandinsky, Feininger, Gropius and Mies van der Rohe have lost none of their renown over the years, and continue to reflect this fame on the school itself. The names of famous women however, are scarcely to be found. After examining the policies of the school toward its students, the question arises how the Bauhaus treated its female staff, and whether the school was able to attract not only the leading men of their time but also the most talented women. As we know, contemporary artists such as Sonia Delaunay, Sophie Täuber-Arp, Eileen Gray, Ljubov Popova, Maria Likarz and Hannah Höch did not teach at the Bauhaus, and on taking a closer look at the situation it must be admitted that the Bauhaus was astonishingly conventional in its attitudes to the sexes. Let us remember that the Bauhaus did not have professors but masters - form masters, work masters and lastly young masters. The most talented Bauhaus students, who were expected to be able to combine theory and practice in a new style and manner, were nominated young masters, and were supported by the school, and embodied it. Out of all the young masters there was only one woman, and this was Gunta Stölzl. Weaving had been designated as a woman's area, and only for this reason did it appear legitimate for a woman to be in charge. But even this was not a foregone conclusion. Gunta Stölzl had been with the Bauhaus in its earliest days, and had made herself indispensable in many different areas of the school's operation. However, she was not nominated or selected by the council of masters. The Bauhaus had never planned to entrust the leadership of a workshop to the hands of a woman. Some six years, or 12 semesters after she entered the school, she was accorded the position of work master. She performed a really demanding job managing the workshop's move from Weimar to Dessau. The form master of the workshop, the painter Georg Muche, was theoretically responsible, but Gunta Stölzl complained to a friend: "When I took on my teaching post in 1925, the first task to confront me was to completely organize the equipment for the weaving workshop.... Herr Muche took little interest in this practical side of the weaving workshop" (letter to Frau Aichele, March 29, 1971). The Women Weavers reproached Muche for his lack of interest in the weaving workshop, and with the move to Dessau they began to demand that a different person should hold the post. Ise Gropius noted in her diary (entry for June 16, 1925): "The weaving workshop is demanding that Gunta Stölzl functions as its head and is recognized as such. Another storm of protest against the masters." A year later, in June of 1926, Georg Muche decided to give in his notice. However, he remained at the school on full salary until July of 1927. This generosity is all the more surprising, since many women weavers in the workshop were either unpaid, or poorly paid and on short-term contracts. Gunta Stölzl herself only had a three-month contract initially, until her position improved as a young master. Even then her new contract offered no rights to a studio, nor to child allowance or pension. Muche's exceptionally cushioned departure from the Bauhaus stands out in contrast. Obtaining the master's post demonstrated the power of the women weavers, and to have given in to them was certainly a clever move. The existence of just one female form master showed that women were not barred from chances of promotion at the Bauhaus. Gunta Stölzl was the token, to show other women that it could happen, and this headed off any further dissatisfaction. The women weavers competed among themselves for sought-after positions in the weaving workshop, as there were few other opportunities available at the Bauhaus at that time for gifted women students. Another woman master was Lily Reich, though she was active at the Bauhaus for such a short time that she had little influence. An experienced machine embroiderer, she took over the running of the workshop on January 5, 1932 from Otti Berger, another woman member of the Bauhaus, who had been acting head until then. Even if it might be thought that Reich gained this position because she was the personal partner of Mies van der Rohe, in fact her qualifications fully justified her in her own right with a reputation in decoration, interior design and fashion. She was also the first woman member of the board of the German Werkbund. It is, however, difficult to see the appointment of Lily Reich as a really practical decision. As head of the new “Extension” department, into which the weaving workshop had to be integrated, there was hardly time for her to have any great effect. In the winter semester of the same year the Bauhaus moved to Berlin, where the school attempted in vain to establish itself in an old telephone factory in Steglitz. In retrospect, Gunta Stölzl remains the only woman young master in the history of the Bauhaus, although her deputies could all in principle have filled a leading post. Both Otti Berger and Grete Reichardt set up workshops independently later on; Anni Albers and Margarete Leischner began to teach after emigrating. Many of the other women weavers found it difficult to find a suitable business outlet. If the Bauhaus had openly promoted its discriminatory policy, perhaps frank discussions could have been held on the board's attitude. Instead of this, each woman's career experience in the school was completely individual, as the institution's policy aims and a subtle dissembling rendered any discrimination against women almost invisible.

Anja Baumhoff - The Token Woman Master, 1999

Sigrid Wortmann Weltge - The Purge (excerpt), 1993 : An excerpt from chapter 10, The Purge, in Sigrid Wortmann Weltge’s book, “Bauhaus Textiles: Women Artists and the Weaving Workshop”, that discusses Stölzl’s departure from the Bauhaus in the context of its closure, and the beginning of Stölzl’s new life in Switzerland. The Purge (excerpt) Sigrid Wortmann Weltge ....... The Bauhaus was no stranger to animosity, but with Hitler's rise to power, terror and intimidation became all-pervasive. Although many years in the making, the rapidity, ferocity and thoroughness of the assault caught many by surprise. There was no collective uproar. ‘An ominous silence has fallen over art and cultural circles', wrote Schlemmer to Gunta Stölzl in 1933. ‘It is all up!’ Stölzl's forced resignation from the Bauhaus preceded its closure by less than two years and may have helped her in securing a refuge before the deluge of uprooted Germans poured into the rest of Europe. With her marriage to Arieh Sharon in 1929 she had automatically lost her German citizenship and become a Palestinian subject. Moreover, Sharon was Jewish. All this had irritated the right-wing posse which had ousted her in Dessau and had contributed to their charge of ‘impropriety’. It had been counted against her then, now it added once more to the precariousness of her existence. Stölzl encountered the fate of every displaced person: the struggle for legal papers. The need for authorization to work, residence permits, a valid passport and a host of official forms kept her in a perpetual state of insecurity. ‘I do not have the faintest idea where I could go if Switzerland is no longer an option - France, Paris - every place is saturated with émigrés, none of whom know how they can make a living.’ Not until 1935, when she feared she might become stateless, did she receive a British passport. In 1925 Stölzl had commented that Benita Otte was treated ‘royally because of her Bauhaus stamp'; in 1933 the craft school Burg Giebichenstein was forced to terminate the contracts of Otte and other Bauhäusler because of it. ‘All my friends in Germany', wrote Stölzl from Switzerland, ‘have to start life all over again . . . just as I had to here.’ But her position in Zurich was by no means secure. The handweaving studio she had started in 1931 with two other Bauhäusler, Gertrud Preiswerk and Heinrich-Otto Hurlimann, experienced financial difficulties and had to close a year and a half later. Commissions were sporadic and barely paid the bills for herself and her young daughter. Despite these frustrations, Stölzl integrated into Swiss society and never lost her gratitude to her host country. She joined several professional organizations, including the Swiss Werkbund, which enabled her to participate in exhibitions. Over time, she collaborated with a number of textile companies. Her willingness to accept all kinds of commissions and the technical expertise that she used to execute them, enabled her to endure these years of hardship. She designed and produced an astounding variety of textiles, from prototypes for machine-woven curtains, wall coverings, table-cloths, rugs, upholstery and apparel fabrics to individual projects like theatre curtains and interior schemes. Her business, which she opened in 1937, went by the name of Studio Flora. Contacts with other Bauhäusler were curtailed by the War, but somehow messages got through. The past was a strong bond. ‘New friends', wrote Schlemmer to Stölzl in 1942, ‘-ah, they are few and far between, and you are very right that one gets the greatest pleasure from seeing the old ones, who have already become part of history.’ To her new friends, Stölzl added a new family. In 1942 she married Willy Stadler with whom she had another daughter. She was now a Swiss citizen. Largely through Gropius's initiative, American interest in the Bauhaus began as soon as communication with Europe was restored after the War. Stölzl sold a hanging to the Busch-Reisinger Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the late forties, and another one to the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the fifties. Subsequent purchases and gifts of weave samples have augmented both collections. Germany did not pay tribute to the Bauhaus until the sixties, due in part to the division of the country and the location of both Weimar and Dessau in the Eastern zone. Hans Maria Wingler, who undertook the monumental documentation of the Bauhaus with the support of a Rockefeller grant, staged the fast exhibition of the Weaving Workshop in Darmstadt in 1964. Stölzl was prominently represented. From the moment Gunta Stölzl first encountered a loom, she recognized her innate talent to transform yarns into complex, limitless varieties of woven entities. When the joyous experimentation of the Weimar years gave way to Dessau functionalism, she not only adapted but also pioneered new materials and fabrics. As an educator she was modest, free from jealousies, consistently encouraging and eager to recognize exceptional talent. Weaving was her life. She had experienced offhand the challenges of the medium and now, in her later years, returned to the starting point, delighting once again in weaving as art. Gunta Stölzl died in Switzerland in 1983. .......

Sigrid Wortmann Weltge - The Purge (excerpt), 1993

Mathew Bourne - Modern Carpets + Textiles, Autumn 2005 : An article by Matthew Bourne of Christopher Farr Rugs, that appeared in the autumn 2005 issue of ‘Modern Carpets + Textiles’. Form and Function Despite the enduring influence of the Bauhaus, little is known about the innovative Bauhaus weaver Gunta Stölzl. Matthew Bourne of Christopher Farr Rugs explains how his company came to weave some of her ground-breaking designs and speaks to Stölzl’s daughter Monica Stadler about her mother’s work. The Bauhaus school established in Germany in 1919, has near legendary status in the art-and-design community as the seedbed of modernist theory on all aspects of design - from the buildings of Mies van de Rohe to the iconic furniture of Marcel Breuer. But little is known about the work of Gunta Stölzl (1897-1983), the only female 'Master', who from 1927 to 1931 directed the Bauhaus weaving workshop which was one of the most prolific and profitable of all the Bauhaus departments. Given textiles' and rugs’ perennial poor-relation status in the field of applied arts, this is not surprising. The people involved in the weaving workshop were exclusively women, who had often found themselves assigned there after entering the Bauhaus as would-be artists and architects. It seems that the progressive thinking for which the Bauhaus was famed did not necessarily end to extend to the roles of women in the design community. An article from the Bauhaus journal Offset in 1926 states: “weaving is primarily a woman’s field of work. The play with form and colour, an enhanced sensitivity to material, the capacity of adaptation, rhythmical rather than logical thinking, are frequent female traits of character stimulating women to creative activity in the fields of textiles.” But Stölzl and her colleagues took the same rational thought process that characterised the Bauhaus approach to architecture and other products, and applied it to textiles. Bauhaus designers had initially seen weavings as 'pictures made of wool’, but subsequently arrived at the conclusion that a rug or other textile is determined equally by two considerations: its intended end use and factors of its production - in other words, form and function. Having accepted that a textile’s uses would always be limited by the way it was produced and the materials it was made with (a runner made of woven paper would be of scant use for the floor of a hallway, for example), other considerations came into play, the most important of which was the principle that Stölzl held dear: “that a textile has to be a surface and always have the effect of a surface”. This meant that the weaving workshop consciously moved away from attempting to reproduce realistic floral patterns or pictorial images - rugs pretending to be pictures - and concentrated on carpets as space-defining objects that drew interest through the use of colour, geometry and materials to enhance a room, but never dominate it. Wall-hangings and tapestries were not subject to the restrictions imposed by other elements in the room. Weavers could give full vent to artistic expression as long as they remained sympathetic to the technique used. It is interesting that this view of floor-coverings as a supporting act to the main event of what is on the walls is prevalent today. All rug dealers know how important it is for a rug not to be too obtrusive. Whereas the hand weaving of floor-coverings was seen as a tool for developed techniques that could be adapted for use in mass production the weaving of rugs and wall-hangings was viewed as a direct method of production. The weaving workshop benefited from its proximity to the architectural department. The architects had a direct influence on the production of the weavers, with requirements for furnishing textiles for specific architectural schemes. The Prellerdecke, a bedspread designed by Stölzl, was used for all the ateliers in the Bauhaus. Weaving techniques were largely self-taught through a process of trial and error and by looking at existing tribal weavings. Stölzl's designs have influenced a new generation of textile designers. I first became aware of her rug designs when the influential designer Jack Lenor Larsen contacted my partner Christopher Farr about the possibility of producing hand-knotted carpets in Turkey from some of her designs. Jack had known Stölzl in her later years and was keen to see some of her designs that had never been woven produced. We were delighted to have the opportunity to do so. In 1997 we produced a flatweave for display alongside original work for a retrospective exhibition in the Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg. Encouraged by the experience and the response to this first experiment we went on to produce a small collection of hand-knotted rugs and flatweaves that were exhibited at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London in the autumn of 2000. We are now launching our second collection of limited edition Stölzl-designed carpets. The process for realising the rugs was problematic given that the technical specification of much of the artwork was unclear and was often labelled only as 'design for a rug' or something similar. We worked closely with her daughters Monica Stadler and Yael Aloni, and spent hours poring over artwork at Victoria & Albert Museum, soliciting input from the people who knew her best. An extensive period of sampling was necessary to achieve the colour, shade and intensity the sisters thought best represented their mother's original intentions and to produce the carpets to a scale that we all thought appropriate. This would sometimes mean producing a rug in dimensions that would be considered uncommercial in today's market, such as the long narrow carpet illustrated on the last page of this article. But we embarked on the project because of our desire to create unrealized designs that had touched us on a level that went beyond more humdrum considerations like ‘will this rug work with this year's colours?' and trusted that what was apparent to us would, in turn, be apparent to our customers and collectors. What has been interesting, not to say ironic, given the Bauhaus ethos, is the very strong response the carpets receive from people on an artistic level. They are seen as more than designs for floor-coverings but as decorative objects that can be hung on walls but that work within a decorative scheme when placed on the floor and surrounded by furniture. Anyone who has attempted to design and market rugs will understand that this is a trick that is very hard to pull off. It is testament to Stölzl’s great talent that her work transcends the boundaries of time and place.

Mathew Bourne - Modern Carpets + Textiles, Autumn 2005

Interview with Monika Stadler - Modern Carpets + Textiles, Autumn 2005 : Monika Stadler, Stölzl’s daughter, with Mathew Bourne of Christopher Farr Rugs in the autumn 2005 issue of ‘Modern Carpets + Textiles’. Matthew Bourne: Did your mother or her associates in the Bauhaus weaving workshop have any particular things that they were looking at while they were designing textiles and rugs? Old oriental weavings for instance? Monika Stadler: All we know for sure is that the still-existing library of the Bauhaus in Weimar contains quite a few books on ethnic art. ‘Primitive art' was in the avant-garde at the time - not only at the Bauhaus. MB: Where did Gunta learn the principles of weaving - in particular hand-knotting? MS: In 1920 she borrowed a Gobelin loom from a handicraft teacher in Weimar and wove her first little wall-hanging. In the following months a group of Bauhaus students started their first experiments on handlooms. Their handicraft teacher knew very little about weaving herself. So they experimented, more or less as autodidacts. They soon realised that they had to learn the techniques elsewhere. The first thing Gunta and one of her colleagues wanted lo learn was dyeing. So they attended a course in Krefeld. From then on, till the end, the Bauhaus had its own dyeing facilities. A year later they followed a two-month course in weaving techniques. In 1922 she knotted her first huge Smyrna rug - 3 x 2m. In 1968 she wrote in an article in Das Werk: “This technique I had to find out about all by myself. There was no instruction.” In the early years of the Bauhaus the students felt very much that they wanted to discover things for themselves. Stölzl said later that they almost felt that they were ‘reinventing’ weaving. They wanted to discover its possibilities without having to take over the aesthetic principles of past generations. MB: Do you know where yarn was sourced? MS: All I know is that material was difficult to get in the post-war years and they often had to make do with inferior material. In Switzerland she used a lot of hand-spun wool and had it dyed in exactly the colours she needed. She did some dyeing herself also. My sister Yael Aloni remembers the strong smell of ammonia in their small flat in Zurich! MB: Did Gunta have a view as to how carpets should be used in an interior scheme, and if so was it formed as part of a Bauhaus orthodoxy or was it a privately held view? MS: What I remember from the 1950s and '60s is that she thought textiles should add warmth to the interior of contemporary concrete, steep and glass buildings. For functional textiles she still advocated that they should fit unobtrusively into the whole of the interior, but they should be intriguing in their structures, colours and tactile qualities. She certainly saw a place for wall-hangings, producing many such hangings in her Swiss years. The Bauhaus, in its final phase, had no use any more for either wall-hangings or artistic rugs, but the stubborn weavers produced them anyway. Stölzl used woven as well as knotted rugs on floors and walls (not beds though) all her life. MB: Were many of Gunta's designs produced by the weaving workshop for private clients? MS: Yes. Many designs mention the name of a client in her handwriting. MB: Was there a 'Bauhaus' approach to the design of carpets that fitted with its views on architecture? MS: The Bauhaus in its early Weimar years made use of very imaginative rugs that were also allowed to dominate the interior. The room of the director illustrates this. Later on they distinguished strictly between purely functional and purely artistic textiles and somehow they had no more use for such dominating rugs on the floor. MB: When Gunta was producing so many designs did she believe they would ever be made by the workshop or was she just very prolific and could not stop designing? MS: Probably both. Her designs might also be part of her teaching. Designs for various techniques: Smyrna, double weaves, jacquard weaves and so on. MB: What carpets did you have around you as a child? Can you remember? MS: There were floor rugs, and we always had a wall-hanging in our living room. MB: What do you think Gunta would have made of the current boom in modern rug design? Would she have had a view on hand-knotted versus gun-tufted for instance? MS: In an article she wrote for the magazine Das Werk in 1936 she wrote: “The producer of machine-made textiles uses the most complicated procedures to make the cheapest material appear 'rich' and 'effective'.'' This might also be her answer on gun-tufted rugs. She hated cheap stuff that wanted to look expensive through imitation. On the other hand she might say: ''Let's study this gun-tufting technique thoroughly and see if we can think of completely new designs that are specifically suited to this technique.” MB: Did Gunta ever get involved with natural plant dyes? MS: Her article in Das Werk 1968 states: “We dye with natural dyes such as cochineal, wood, indigo and also with various synthetic dyes.” One of her most interesting wall hangings used plant-dyed wools. MB: How influential do you feel the work your mother did has been on rug and textile design of the last thirty years? MS: My sister and I don't live in the design world. We have no idea really, but the many publications of the past ten years must have had an impact on designers. The textile department of the Bauhaus gets more and more attention in these publications. I see firms that produce textiles in the spirit of the Bauhaus, textiles that are original, but that also have a lasting simplicity and beauty. But of course there is a lot of trendiness that soon becomes boring and that my mother would have abhorred. MB: Did Gunta enjoy the actual process of hand weaving or was it a means to an end? MS: I am sure she enjoyed designing on the handloom. Not weaving huge quantities though, at least not during my lifetime. I remember that she knotted carpets herself in the 1960s. The one in the photo she made for her own house. She enjoyed doing this. As to woven fabrics: all her life she defended the handloom as the place where textiles should be developed, and she regretted that only a few firms, such as the Dutch firm De Ploeg, worked in this Bauhaus tradition, thereby producing textiles that were interesting and functional. She praised England in this connection. In her article for the magazine Das Werk in 1936 she wrote: “In England, the homeland of textiles of classical, practical and aesthetic quality, the cooperation between handloom and mechanical loom was never interrupted; each major firm developed patterns and qualities on the handloom.''

Interview with Monika Stadler - Modern Carpets + Textiles, Autumn 2005

Lesley Jackson - Selvedge Magazine, Issue 11, 2006 : The following article was published in issue 11, 2006, of “Selvedge Magazine” on the occasion of the exhibition “Modernism, designing a new world” in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. Gunta Stölzl Textile aficionados may be a little disappointed at the paucity of fabrics in the V&A’s Modernism show. But one individual whose contribution is recognised is the weaver Gunta Stölzl (1897-1983) – a pivotal figure at the Bauhaus and in the history of the Modern Movement. Stölzl initially studied at Munich School of Arts and Crafts from 1914-16, but then spent a couple of years working as a volunteer Red Cross Nurse in a field hospital during the First World War. In 1919 she resumed her studies at the newly established Bauhaus in Weimar, having been inspired by Walter Gropius’s rousing prospectus, which promised to break down the barriers between art and craft, and to treat female students on equal terms with men. Rebellious and idealistic by nature – an ‘independent spirit’, according to her youngest daughter, Monika Stadler (in a recent email) - Stölzl was excited by the prospect of developing her skills as a painter in a free and unconstrained environment. The Bauhaus was certainly radical and revolutionary from an artistic point of view, although in reality it proved much less democratic than it purported to be. The number of women students was capped and those who were admitted were forcibly channelled in the direction of textiles - much to Stölzl’s disappointment initially, although she soon warmed to the medium. All Bauhaus students had to complete the free-ranging, mind-expanding Vorkurs or Preliminary Course (forerunner of the foundation course, later adopted in the UK), before entering a specialist workshop. Each workshop was headed up by a Formmeister or Master of Form, an artist whose role was to nurture the students’ creative development, rather than to teach them practical skills. Stölzl’s tutor on the Vorkurs and, by a stroke of good fortune, her first Formmeister in the weaving workshop, was the artist Johannes Itten. A mystic whose taste in religion (Zoroastrianism) was as unconventional as his approach to teaching, Itten had a profound influence on Stölzl. His theory of elementary forms – centred on the circle, the square and the triangle – and his preoccupation with primary colours, are reflected in some of Stölzl’s designs, particularly a red, yellow and blue jacquard-woven silk and cotton damask wall-hanging featuring circular motifs from 1926-7, a highlight of the Modernism show. Itten also alerted Stölzl to the other sensory qualities of textiles, particularly their potential as a vehicle for textural effects. One of Itten’s ploy for cultivating tactile awareness was to encourage his students to handle yarns, cloth and other materials with their eyes closed, then to visualise their physical impressions through sketches or collages. Heightened sensitivity to texture remained a distinctive feature of Stölzl’s textiles throughout her career, manifesting itself not only in her imaginative and often unusual combinations of yarns, but in the lively and varied weave structures of her tapestries. Itten left the Bauhaus in 1923, but Stölzl found him so inspirational that, after completing her examinations, she moved to Switzerland for nine months the following year to assist him in setting up the Ontos weaving workshops at Herrliberg, near Zürich. In 1925, however, she returned to the Bauhaus to teach. Two years later she was officially appointed head of the workshop (the only female Master at the school), a post she held until 1931. The other artist who made a decisive impression on Stölzl at the Bauhaus was Paul Klee, who became something of a guru to students in the weaving workshop. Drawing parallels with music, Klee stressed the importance of rhythm and movement in textile design, the need to engender a sense of dynamism and depth, even in apparently simple flat striped patterns. It was Klee who opened Stölzl’s eyes to the complex visual relationships within the colour spectrum, the way different colours interact or harmonise with each other. The vibrancy and complexity of Stölzl’s rugs and tapestries in terms of colour and composition can be interpreted as a direct response to Klee’s teaching. However, her work was never remotely derivative. Her exquisite design drawings, brilliantly executed in vivid, flowing watercolour, and her surviving textiles, attest to Stölzl’s abundant talent. ‘Design honesty’ and ‘design originality’ were her mother’s mottoes, according to Monika Stadler. Her tapestries and rugs exude energy, while her artwork is, quite literally, a work of art. Yet, while the artistic side of the Bauhaus education system quickly bore fruit, the quality of technical tuition left much to be desired. When Stölzl arrived she discovered a room full of looms, but no one on the staff who knew how to use them. The first students, therefore, basically had to teach themselves, and it was the feisty Stölzl who took the lead in this. ‘Everything technical – how the loom works, the different styles of weaving, how to thread – we had to learn by trial and error. For us poor self-taught students there was a lot of guesswork and not a few tears,’ she later recalled in the magazine Werk in 1968. Idealistic yet pragmatic, Stölzl and fellow student Benita Otte realised after a while that lack of technical proficiency would seriously hinder their development. From 1922 onwards, therefore, they took the initiative to attend specialised dyeing and weaving courses in the textile-manufacturing city of Krefeld, acquiring valuable knowledge which they were then able to disseminate at the Bauhaus. After returning to the Bauhaus in 1925 following the school’s relocation to its new purpose-designed premises in Dessau, Stölzl approached her role as teacher with great energy and enthusiasm, completely revamping the syllabus, establishing new dyeing facilities and introducing a much wider range of looms (including shaft and jacquard looms, and a carpet knotting frame). The weaving studio was divided into teaching and production zones and, in addition, Stölzl enlisted the services of a master weaver, Kurt Wanke, to deal with technical matters. Writing in the Bauhaus journal in 1931, she outlined her philosophy as an educationalist: ‘The aim of the general education was to loosen up the student and to provide him (sic) with the broadest possible base and with a direction for a systematic approach to his work.’ While Stölzl herself continued to specialise in hand-loom weaving, she recognised the importance of equipping students to design for industry. At Dessau, increasingly, this was the policy, especially after Walter Gropius was succeeded as director by Hannes Meyer, an architect with Marxist inclinations. From 1927 onwards, at Meyer’s instigation, there was a decided shift of emphasis away from one-off tapestries and hand-knotted rugs (now decried as self-indulgent and bourgeois) in favour of woven furnishing and upholstery fabrics suitable for machine-production. Stölzl, however, remained firmly committed to the practice of developing prototypes by hand. ‘Upholstery fabric, being fixed in space and being confined to a specific purpose, should have an attractive textural surface effect,’ she wrote in the Bauhaus journal, Offset, in 1926. ‘Only work at the hand loom allows the kind of latitude for an idea to be developed from experiment to experiment, until is it is defined and clarified to the point that sample products can be handed to industry for mechanical reproduction.’ The new focus on design for production was also prompted by economic necessity. The Bauhaus was desperately short of funds and it relied on royalties from designs produced under licence by manufacturers to keep it afloat. Textiles – such as a range of fabrics produced by the Berlin firm Polytex - emerged as the one of the most successful and lucrative areas of Bauhaus design from a commercial point of view. While Stölzl worked tirelessly to further the school’s endeavours in the development of ‘utility materials’, on a personal level she was understandably reluctant to renounce hand-weaving and her interest in aesthetics. Throughout her years at the Bauhaus she continued to design and make unique pieces. ‘Tapestries and wall hangings are not commodities,’ she declared in 1926. ‘Other standards apply to these; they belong in the area of free artistic expression.’ Later, in 1931, she spoke of the importance of ‘speculative experimentation with materials, form and colour in tapestries and rugs.’ Over the years her resistance led to a growing ideological split between Stölzl and some of her more zealous colleagues. In spite of her heroic efforts in developing the weaving workshop, latterly Stölzl was subjected to an unpleasant politically motivated campaign. Eventually the pressure became too intense and in September 1931 she resigned. The Bauhaus itself only lasted another couple of years before being shut down by the Nazis in 1933. Forced into exile from Germany (her first husband was Jewish), Stölzl made a new life for herself in Zürich and remained in Switzerland until her death in 1983. Although small in stature, she was mentally and physically tough – ‘a fighting person’, in the words of her older daughter, Yael Aloni. In 1931 Stölzl teamed up with with two ex-Bauhaus students, Gertrud Preiswerk and Heinrich-Otto Hürlimann, to establish a hand-loom weaving mill called S-P-H-Stoffe. After this folded in 1937, she set up a company called Handweberei Flora, which she ran for the next thirty years until 1967, producing hand-woven fabrics for curtains, upholstery, wall-coverings and fashion, as well as knotted and woven rugs. Revelling in the type of intricate, technically experimental effects that are impossible to reproduce by machine, Stölzl’s post-Bauhaus textiles were extremely inventive, often incorporating hand-spun yarns and unusual materials such as cellophane. During the 1950s Stölzl took up tapestry weaving again. In spite of the shabby treatment she received at the Bauhaus, Stölzl retained an affection for the school, particularly during its joyful, wild, free-spirited early days, and she kept in touch with many ex-Bauhäuslers, such as Anni Albers and Benita Otte. ‘She often made fun of people who in her eyes “sanctified” the Bauhaus,’ recalls Monika Stadler, ‘but she remembered this exciting time in her life with great fondness.’ Although she mocked the idea of over-glamorising the Bauhaus, Stölzl knew the real value of her achievements as an artist and a teacher. ‘Weaving was what interested her most because she considered it the most essential, basic textile process,’ concludes Stadler. Stölzl’s work has an enduring modernity that appeals to present-day taste. Enthusiasts include Matthew Bourne and Christopher Farr, who have recently issued a second collection of limited edition knotted and flatweave rugs based on Stölzl’s hitherto unrealised designs. Bourne singles out ‘her unparalleled use of colour and her uncompromising approach’ as the features that appeal to him most in terms of carpet design. ‘She produced beautiful rugs that stand on their own as works of art, yet at the same time enhance most decorative schemes.’ Like the first collection, which was launched at the RIBA in 2000, the new rugs draw on original artwork in museum archives, including the V&A. ‘Frankly we were spoilt for choice!’ says Bourne. Now Habitat, who are sponsoring the Modernism exhibition, are also getting in on the act. They have produced a budget version of a Stölzl rug costing a mere £250 to coincide with the show. ‘Woven fabrics in a room are equally important in the larger entity of architecture as the colour of the walls, the furniture and household equipment,’ declared Stölzl in 1931. With their arresting and exhilarating compositions, bold manipulation of geometric forms and confident handling of colour, Stölzl’s tapestries and carpets are just as innovative as the ground-breaking Modernist abstract paintings of the 1920s. Indeed Stölzl herself believed that the fine and applied arts, at their best, were equal in creative terms: ‘A Rembrandt and a beautiful Persian carpet have equal artistic merit,’ she observed. Lesley Jackson Author’s note: I am indebted to Gunta Stölzl’s daughters, Monika Stadler and Yael Aloni, for their personal insights and assistance in preparing this article. Many thanks also to Matthew Bourne at Christopher Farr. Submitted to Selvedge (27 March 2006) The Selvedge site has the Issue Content

Lesley Jackson - Selvedge Magazine, Issue 11, 2006

Sigrid Wortmann Weltge - The Bard Graduate Center 1999-2000 : Studies in the DECORATIVE ARTS Volume VII Number 1 Fall-Winter 1999-2000 THE BARD GRADUATE CENTER FOR STUDIES IN THE DECORATIVE ARTS Article by: SIGRID WORTMANN WELTGE (pp.126,127) Ingrid Radewaldt, ed., Gunta Stölzl-Meisterin am Bauhaus Dessau: Textilien, Textilentwürfe und freie Arbeiten 1915-1983, exh. Cat. Ostfilderen, Germany: Hatje for Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, 1997. 264 pp., 139 color pl s, 122 b/w ills., appendices, bibliog. DM 98. It was at the Bauhaus in Dessau that Gunta Stölzl, one of the foremost textile designers of the twentieth century, experienced not only her greatest professional triumphs but also a devastating defeat. Rising from student to instructor to master, she became the only female faculty member of the famous institution. As such she steered the Weaving Workshop from craft to industrial design, developing it into the most successful and financially viable of all the Bauhaus workshops. After her departure, her career as an independent designer continued to encompass innovative textile design and individual works of art. Although male Bauhaus members have enjoyed fame and worldwide exhibitions too numerous to count, the achievements of this remarkable woman remained, until recently, woefully undocumented. Sixty-six years after her forced resignation in 1931 and fourteen years after her death in 1983, the Dessau Bauhaus has righted the balance. A major retrospective exhibition, a definitive catalogue, and a symposium illuminated a brilliant talent and a career that was, in many ways, representative of the struggles, achievements, and setbacks encountered by other Bauhaus women. All this occurred in 1997, marking Stölzl’s centennial. Born in Munich, Stölzl studied decorative painting and ceramics at the local Kunstgewerbeschule and enlisted as a Red Cross nurse during the final two years of World War I. In 1919 she was among the plethora of young women attracted by Walter Gropius’s Bauhaus manifesto and its egalitarian message, its faith in the Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), and Gropius’s aim to make workshops the cornerstone of Bauhaus education. The unexpectedly large number of female students and their claim to precious workshop spaces, however, prompted the Bauhaus to form a separate women’s department which, in 1920, became the Weaving Workshop. Stölzl discovered her affinity for textiles and, in the absence of a professional instructor, quickly took charge of the workshop. She passed her journeyman’s examination in 1922, became technical director of the Dessau Weaving Workshop in 1925, and was appointed junior master in 1927. From the beginning, she distinguished herself through innovation, whether in designing one-of-a-kind hangings, using new materials, or developing industrial prototypes. Under her leadership, the Weaving Workshop thrived. Not only did it contribute significantly to the upkeep of the Bauhaus, always in a precarious financial situation, but it made “Bauhaus fabrics” synonymous with technical invention and excellence in design. Unfortunately, however, elements within the school soon echoed the growing right-wing political climate in Germany, and in 1931 internal intrigues forced Stölzl’s resignation. She went into exile in Switzerland where she continued to work as a hand-weaver and a designer for industry. Selected and well-known examples of Stölzl’s work have, of course, been included in previous Bauhaus exhibitions. In Dessau, however, viewing the scope of her lifetime’s achievement – the sheer quality, quantity, and diversity of her work – was a revelation. By dividing the vast exhibition space into sections, a comprehensive thematic overview of Stölzl’s oeuvre emerged. Included were drawings executed before she entered the school, student work starting in 1919, and every aspect of her mature professional career. The viewer was made witness to a life devoted to the cause of excellence in design. Even her early academic and travel sketches revealed a deft hand and a very personal point of view. Among these a drawing of an old weaver and his loom seemed especially prescient. Stölzl’s confident use of color, a hallmark of all her later artwork, whether on paper or in textiles, was already evident in student projects executed in Johannes Itten’s famous Vorkurs (preliminary course). A distinct surprise was the number and quality of gouaches and watercolors, of which only a limited number were known until now. Even before the arrival of Wassily Kandinsky at the Bauhaus in 1922, Stölzl’s works on paper convey her familiarity with Modernism and her confidence in creating abstract compositions in brilliant, fluid color applications. While some compositions reflect the influence of Paul Klee, a Bauhaus master sympathetic to the textile students, her geometric designs for carpets, wall hangings, and yardage and the rich palette of her color studies are uniquely her own. Placing these works at the beginning of the exhibition introduced the viewer to the range of her talent and to the depth of her artistry, dispelling the notion of Stölzl as “merely” a weaver. The larger part of the exhibition was devoted to textiles and textile designs, again divided into thematic groups. Stripes, squares, rectangles, and free-form designs showed her compositional approach to fabrics, while other sections, for instance jacqards, emphasized Stölzl’s complete technical understanding of weaving structures. Of course such a division was arbitrary since in the hands of a talent like Stölzl all these areas overlap. She was a pioneer in recognizing the artistic potential of jacquard weaving, a medium that uses machine rather than hand looms, and until then had been associated with mass production only. Today designers are rediscovering the possibilities of jacquard weaving, overcoming technical hurdles through advanced electronic technology, none of which was available to Stölzl. Yet her jacquards, testimony to her mastery of a complicated system of knowledge, are also artistic statements of unprecedented beauty. By its very nature, an exhibition is a fleeting occurrence. (This one appeared at the Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, August 20,1997-January 4,1998; the Städtische Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, January 18-March 8,1998; and the Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg, March 20-May 17,1998.) The accompanying catalogue, here under review, the definitive work on Stölzl thus far, is a scholarly compilation of individual essays. Edited and with contributions by the curator of the exhibition, Ingrid Radewaldt, it illuminates every facet of Stölzl’s life and work. Two biographies, one comprehensive, the other a chronological overview, benefited from the collaboration of Stölzl’s daughters, Yael Aloni and Monika Stadler, who also provided previously unpublished material. Ingrid Radewaldt’s descriptions of Stölzl’s work are informed by her thorough knowledge of the subject and include trenchant technical and visual analysis. Anja Baumhoff’s essay, “Equality, Tolerance or Exclusion ? Bauhaus Women in the Weimar Republic,” provides new insight into the institution in which, despite egalitarian claims, “the climate ….. was not hospitable, and very few women were able to attend classes of their choice without enrolling in the Weaving Workshop.” A refreshing relief from the iconic photographs at the Bauhaus are a number of previously unpublished snapshots showing Gunta Stölzl as a woman, friend and mother. The color plates are lavish in number and of good quality, although inclusion of descriptions on the same page rather than in a separate section would have been helpful and would have enhanced appreciation of the work. This, however, is a minor criticism. In conjunction with the exhibition, the Dessau Bauhaus organized a well-attended symposium, which took place on October 9, 1997. Ingrid Radewaldt led an informative tour through the galleries, elucidating new Stölzl scholarship in situ. Three formal papers followed. In “Marianne Brandt and Gunta Stölzl: From Bauhaus into Life – Two Biographies – A Comparison,” Magdalena Droste not only explored the Bauhaus tenure of these two designers but investigated their careers once they had left it. Anja Baumhoff presented the catalogue essay mentioned above. Her thought-provoking, superbly researched contribution investigated the Frauenfrage within its social and historical context. Baumhoff contended that it was precisely the segregated nature of the Weaving Workshop that permitted Stölzl to rise to a leadership position, a position that would have certainly been denied her otherwise. In “Acceptance and Divergence: The Bauhaus Concept in American Textile Design,” this author followed Bauhaus émigrés to the New World, where two weavers disseminated the tenets of the Weaving Workshop. Marli Ehrman at the New Bauhaus in Chicago and Anni Albers at Black Mountain College. Both were exceptional teachers who passed on Bauhaus ideals to a new generation of American textile designers. In addition, Anni Albers’s articles and books challenged the historically anonymous status of the textile arts and placed them alongside other branches of design. As it should have, the Gunta Stölzl retrospective testified first and foremost to the multifaceted talent of the innovative designer and gifted artist. But it did more. It paid tribute to Stölzl’s determination to succeed in an institution with a clear double standard and to the tenacity of women trying to forge careers in uncharted territory. Moreover, it established that Stölzl perfectly realized the goal of the Bauhaus, to unify art and technology. History as a living entity, far from being closed, is always in flux, ready to be reinterpreted by a new generation of scholars. If in its own time the school failed to credit this designer, the present-day Bauhaus redressed the situation. The exhibition, the catalogue, and the symposium cemented a deservedly high appraisal of Stölzl’s role in contributing to the prosperity and lasting legacy of the Bauhaus. Sigrid Wortmann Weltge Professor, History of Art and Design Philadelphia College of Textiles and Science -------------------------------------------------------------------------- i - “The strongest design expression of the new era is evident in the textiles, in those weavings about which Rudolf von Delius says: ‘We feel in Dessau the splendid energy of a way that leads into the future’ “; Günther von Bechmann, “Das Bauhaus in Dessau: Die Arbeit,” Velhagen und Klasings Monatshefte 2, No.7 (1927): n.p. ii - Ingrid Radewaldt, “Bauhaustextilien 1919-1933” (Ph.D. diss., University of Hamburg, 1986). iii - All translations here are by the reviewer. iv - Sigrid Wortmann Weltge, Bauhaus Textiles: Women Artists and the Weaving Workshop (London, 1993). v - The Bauhaus referred to the problem of too many women as, literally, the “woman question

Sigrid Wortmann Weltge - The Bard Graduate Center 1999-2000

Christine Eissengarthen, MA - Sep 2007 : ABSTRACT In the 1920s, the newly established arts and crafts school, the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany, approached the teaching of art and design in novel and progressive ways. Fine art and crafts were to be given the same relevance, and men and women were to have the same status. This proposed equality, however, did not materialise, neither in an artistic parity nor in an equality of gender. As a result of the restrictive admission policy a group of female students established a weaving workshop. Their experiments with material properties, as well as the inventiveness they demonstrated, significantly elevated weaving above the common perception of being a craft produced by women within the home and for decorative purposes. This dissertation is concerned with one of the most outstanding and inspiring figures of the Bauhaus weaving workshop, the German-born Gunta Stölzl (1897-1983). Stölzl progressed from student, to technical instructor, and to head of the workshop. Under her directorship the workshop became one of the most successful of the Bauhaus. A politically motivated conspiracy ended her teaching career. In1931 Stölzl emigrated to Zurich, Switzerland. The rationale of this dissertation is to define the underlying issues of identity and gender which for many years prevented Stölzl from reaching her full artistic potential. By focusing mainly on the years Stölzl spent in Zurich (1931-83), where most of her designs were produced, different stages and transitions in Stölzl’s life and designs will be discussed. Chapter One examines the formative years of Stölzl’s artistic background. It considers the time spent at the Bauhaus (1919-31) in order to emphasise the lasting effect and influence modernist beliefs had on her. The chapter will also look at the individuality, talent and determination that Stölzl showed from early on. Chapter Two focuses on the years from 1931 to 1967, in which Stölzl established herself as a weaver and self-employed business woman in Switzerland. Stölzl’s dedication to producing good and lasting modern design will be discussed in the context of collaboration with architects and interior design companies. Chapter Three will consider her freelance work, mainly the time from 1967 to 1983, in which Stölzl returned to tapestries. In this exceptionally creative period Stölzl wove around fifty gobelins. This late phase accorded her oeuvre its overdue acknowledgment. The essay concludes that Stölzl, as a woman and textile artist, was restricted in her artistic autonomy by social, economic, political and personal circumstances. Yet, throughout her career she showed an unceasing interest in the properties of textiles and their material qualities. Stölzl set a high standard of technical mastery and artistic expression in textile design. Her work is still very much valued and relevant today.

Christine Eissengarthen, MA - Sep 2007

  • Home
  • Biography
  • Works
  • Museums
  • Literature
  • Information
Photo Website Hosting by SmugMug Pro · Login · Contact · Help · Portions © 2013 SmugMug, Inc.
Show FeedsAvailable Feeds
Recent Galleries:
Atom FeedAtom | RSS FeedRSS
Recent Photos:
Atom FeedAtom | RSS FeedRSS