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Marianne Brandt

November 10, 2023

For the German operatic singer, see Marianne Brandt (contralto).

Marianne Brandt (1 October 1893 – 18 June 1983) was a German painter, sculptor, photographer, metalsmith, and designer who studied at the Bauhaus art school in Weimar and later became head of the Bauhaus Metall-Werkstatt (Metal Workshop) in Dessau in 1928. Today, Brandt's designs for household objects such as lamps and ashtrays are considered timeless examples of modern industrial design.[1] She also created photomontages.

Marianne Brandt
Born
Marianne Liebe

1 October 1893
Chemnitz, Germany
Died18 June 1983 (aged 89)
Kirchberg, Saxony, Germany
EducationBauhaus (Weimar School)
Known forindustrial design, painting, sculpture, photography
Spouse(s)Erik Brandt, 1919-1935 (divorced)

Biography edit

Brandt was born into a prominent family in Chemnitz as Marianne Liebe. Brandt studied painting and sculpture at the Weimar Saxon Grand Ducal Art School from 1911 to 1917. In 1919 she married the Norwegian painter Erik Brandt. From 1919-1920 she and her husband lived abroad, first for a year in Norway, before embarking on a one-year study tour to Paris and the south of France. She studied and taught at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau from 1923 to 1929. Between her studies at these two schools, Brandt worked as a freelance artist.[2] She studied painting with the artists Fritz Mackensen and Robert Weise before studying sculpture with Robert Engelmann.[3]

Although the Bauhaus claimed to welcome “any person of good repute, without regard to age or sex”, there was still a strong gender bias. László Moholy-Nagy was impressed by Brandt’s commitment and work, and so he offered her a spot in the Bauhaus metal workshop. She ultimately became the only woman to attain her degree in the metal workshop. Her fellow students later admitted to Brandt that they had believed that there was no place in the metal workshop for women and so gave her dull, dreary work to do; later they got along well. When Moholy-Nagy departed from his Bauhaus teaching post in 1928, Brandt replaced him as acting director of the workshop. [4] She is thus credited by some as a pioneer for gender equity in the arts.[5]

She trained as a painter before joining the Weimar Bauhaus in January of 1924, where she attended classes with Josef Albers, Wassily Kandinsky, and Paul Klee, among others, before joining the metal workshop in summer of the same year.[6][7] There she became a student of Hungarian modernist theorist and designer László Moholy-Nagy. She quickly rose to the position of workshop assistant; when Moholy-Nagy left the Bauhaus in 1928, she became the workshop's acting director, serving in the post for one year and negotiating some of the most important Bauhaus contracts for collaborations with industry. These contracts for the production of lights and other metal workshop designs were a rare example of one of the workshops helping to fund the school. One of her lasting contributions are the lamp fittings that she and Max Krajewski [de] designed for the Bauhaus building in Dessau.

After leaving the Bauhaus for Berlin in 1929, Brandt worked for Walter Gropius in his Berlin studio. From late 1929 through 1932, Brandt was head of design at the Ruppel Metal Goods factory in Gotha, Germany, until she lost her job due to the ongoing Great Depression.

Early in 1933, at the beginning of the Nazi period in Germany, Brandt first attempted to find work outside of the country, but family responsibilities called her back to Chemnitz. She was unable to find steady employment throughout the Nazi period. In 1939 she became a member of the "Reichskulturkammer," the Nazi regime's official artists' organisation, in order to obtain art supplies, which would otherwise have been forbidden to her. However, Brandt was never a member of the Nazi Party. After many years of living apart, she and Erik Brandt officially divorced in 1935.[8]

After World War II, Brandt remained in Chemnitz to help rebuild her family's home, which had been severely damaged in the bombings. She lived out her days in East Germany, and died in Kirchberg, Saxony, at the age of 89.[9] At the invitation of Mart Stam, from 1949 to 1951 Brandt was a lecturer at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. She taught at the Academy of Applied Art in Berlin from 1951 to 1954.[10]

Work edit

Brandt's designs for metal ashtrays, tea and coffee services, lamps, and other household objects are now recognized as among the best of the Weimar and Dessau Bauhaus. Further, they were among the few Bauhaus designs to be mass-produced during the interwar period, and several of them are currently available as reproductions. In an auction in December 2007, one of her teapots —the Model No. MT49 tea infuser—was sold for a record-breaking $361,000.[11]

Beginning in 1926, Brandt also produced a body of photomontage work, though all but a few were not publicly known until the 1970s after she had abandoned the Bauhaus style and was living in Communist East Germany. Some of the photomontages came to public attention after Bauhaus historian Eckhard Neumann solicited the early experiments, stimulated by resurgent interest in modernist experiment in the West. These photomontages often focus on the complex situation of women in the interwar period, a time when they enjoyed new freedoms in work, fashion and sexuality, yet frequently experienced traditional prejudices.

In 1926, Brandt moved with the Bauhaus to Dessau and a year later took charge of lighting design with the metal workshop, before becoming its director from 1928 to 1929. Much of Brandt’s energy was directed into her lighting designs, including collaborations with small number of Bauhaus colleagues and students. One of her early projects was the ME78B hanging lamp (1926). This elegant pendant light made of aluminum featured a simple saucer shade combined with an innovative pulley system and counter-weight, which allowed the height of the lamp to be adjusted with ease; the pendant was used in multiple locations in the Dessau campus, including the metal, weaving and architecture department, as well as the dining room of Gropius’s own house.[12]

During the 1930s and 1940s, Brandt lived in near isolation, despite having many opportunities available to her after her time at Bauhaus. She had just finished showing five photographs at the famed "FiFo" (Film and Photography) exhibition put on by Werkbund. The section her work was shown in was curated by her former mentor Moholy-Nagy. After traveling from job to job and project to project, Brandt lived in her hometown of Chemnitz for sixteen years and did not have any official position. She still produced work, but it was not for a specific purpose or commission. Having picked up painting again during the Nazi period, she continued to paint during the GDR, in both watercolour and tempera. These materials were cheaper and the pieces could be completed more quickly. The paintings are sometimes melancholy and depressing, but this is not surprising considering their timing during her unemployment and the Nazi period.[13]

Brandt is also remembered as a pioneering photographer. She created experimental still-life compositions, but it is her series of self-portraits which are particularly striking. These often represent her as a strong and independent New Woman of the Bauhaus; other examples show her face and body distorted across the curved and mirrored surfaces of metal balls, creating a blended image of herself and her primary medium at the Bauhaus. Brandt was one of few women at Bauhaus who distanced herself from the fields considered more feminine at the time such as weaving or pottery.[14]

Tea sets edit

 
Tea pot, in silver and ebony (1924)

Brandt's tea sets use geometric forms and incorporated ideas from movements such as Constructivism and De Stijl. There is little ornamentation. The sets used material such as silver plate and brass; and ebony for the handles. The tea sets were almost entirely handmade but it led to mass production of similar products. The reproduction rights to Brandt's original 1924 tea set were granted to Alessi, an Italian metalware design company, in 1985.[15] Along with the rights to the tea set, the company also has rights to produce her 1926 ashtray design with removable lid.[2]

Brandt's tea set designs are characteristic of the early phases of modernism. Form predominates over ornament and there is a clear sense of at least symbolic compatibility with modern mass-production technology.[15]

Exhibitions edit

Bibliography edit

  • (in German) Brockhage, Hans and Reinhold Lindner. (2001) Marianne Brandt. Chemnitz: Chemnitzer Verlag
  • (in English) Otto, Elizabeth. Tempo, Tempo! The Bauhaus Photomontages of Marianne Brandt. (2005) Berlin: Jovis Verlag
  • (in German and English) Otto, Elizabeth (2019) Marianne Brandt in Schierz, Kai Uwe (ed.), et al. 4 "Bauhausmädels": Gertrud Arndt, Marianne Brandt, Margarete Heymann, Margaretha Reichardt, pp. 86–119. Dresden: Sandstein Kommunikation ISBN 978-3954984596
  • (in German) Wynhoff, Elisabeth. (2003) Marianne Brandt: Fotografieren am Bauhaus. Hatje Cantz Verlag

References edit

  1. ^ How Bauhaus was shaped into greatness — International Herald Tribune
  2. ^ a b Icons of Design: The 20th Century. Munich, New York: Prestel. 2000. pp. 36, 37. ISBN 978-3791323060.
  3. ^ Otto, Elizabeth (2005). Tempo, tempo! : Bauhaus-Photomontagen von Marianne Brandt = the Bauhaus photomontages of Marianne Brandt. Berlin: Jovis. ISBN 3-936314-55-1. OCLC 68941154.
  4. ^ Otto, Elizabeth (2005). Tempo, tempo! : Bauhaus-Photomontagen von Marianne Brandt = the Bauhaus photomontages of Marianne Brandt. Berlin: Jovis. ISBN 3-936314-55-1. OCLC 68941154.
  5. ^ van den Berg, Lynne. "Marianne Brandt – Iconic Bauhaus Designer | Mid-Century Modern Furniture Then and Now". Mid-Century Modern Furniture Then and Now. Paradigm. Retrieved 12 April 2019.
  6. ^ Otto, Elizabeth (2005). Tempo, tempo! : Bauhaus-Photomontagen von Marianne Brandt = the Bauhaus photomontages of Marianne Brandt. Berlin: Jovis. ISBN 3-936314-55-1. OCLC 68941154.
  7. ^ Nero, Julie (2014). "Engaging Masculinity: Weimar Women Artists and the Boxer". Woman's Art Journal. 35 (1): 40–47. ISSN 0270-7993. JSTOR 24395362.
  8. ^ Otto, Elizabeth (2005). Tempo, tempo! : Bauhaus-Photomontagen von Marianne Brandt = the Bauhaus photomontages of Marianne Brandt. Berlin: Jovis. ISBN 3-936314-55-1. OCLC 68941154.
  9. ^ Photography at the Bauhaus. MIT Press. 1990. p. 342. ISBN 9780262061261.
  10. ^ Otto, Elizabeth (2005). Tempo, tempo! : Bauhaus-Photomontagen von Marianne Brandt = the Bauhaus photomontages of Marianne Brandt. Berlin: Jovis. ISBN 3-936314-55-1. OCLC 68941154.
  11. ^ vRawsthorn, Alice. "The tale of a teapot and its creator". New York Times. Retrieved 2 January 2023.
  12. ^ Bradbury, Dominic (2018-11-06). Essential modernism : design between the world wars. Benton, Tim, 1945-, Buchanan, Mel,, Hoy, Anne H.,, Kentgens-Craig, Margret, 1948-, Kugler, Jolanthe, 1977-, Poynor, Rick. New Haven, Connecticut. ISBN 9780300238341. OCLC 1030393774.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  13. ^ Otto, Elizabeth (14 May 2013). "Marianne Brandt's Experimental Landscapes in Painting and Photography during the National Socialist Period". History of Photography. 37 (2): 167–181. doi:10.1080/03087298.2013.769780. S2CID 191542185.
  14. ^ Wynhoff, Elisabeth (2003). Marianne Brandt: Fotografieren am Bauhaus. Breuer, Gerda, Fiedler, Jeannine, Otto, Elizabeth. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz. ISBN 9783775713108. OCLC 52114849.
  15. ^ a b Icons of design! : the 20th century. Albus, Volker, 1949-, Kras, Reyer., Woodham, Jonathan M. Munich: Prestel. 2000. ISBN 978-3791323060. OCLC 45066681.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)

External links edit

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Marianne Brandt (designer).
  • The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
  • (in German) Life and work of Marianne Brandt
  • (in German) International Marianne Brandt Contest
  • (in English) "Down Tempo" by Ben Davis, Artnet Magazine

November 10, 2023
marianne, brandt, german, operatic, singer, contralto, october, 1893, june, 1983, german, painter, sculptor, photographer, metalsmith, designer, studied, bauhaus, school, weimar, later, became, head, bauhaus, metall, werkstatt, metal, workshop, dessau, 1928, t. For the German operatic singer see Marianne Brandt contralto Marianne Brandt 1 October 1893 18 June 1983 was a German painter sculptor photographer metalsmith and designer who studied at the Bauhaus art school in Weimar and later became head of the Bauhaus Metall Werkstatt Metal Workshop in Dessau in 1928 Today Brandt s designs for household objects such as lamps and ashtrays are considered timeless examples of modern industrial design 1 She also created photomontages Marianne BrandtBornMarianne Liebe1 October 1893Chemnitz GermanyDied18 June 1983 aged 89 Kirchberg Saxony GermanyEducationBauhaus Weimar School Known forindustrial design painting sculpture photographySpouse s Erik Brandt 1919 1935 divorced Contents 1 Biography 2 Work 3 Tea sets 4 Exhibitions 5 Bibliography 6 References 7 External linksBiography editBrandt was born into a prominent family in Chemnitz as Marianne Liebe Brandt studied painting and sculpture at the Weimar Saxon Grand Ducal Art School from 1911 to 1917 In 1919 she married the Norwegian painter Erik Brandt From 1919 1920 she and her husband lived abroad first for a year in Norway before embarking on a one year study tour to Paris and the south of France She studied and taught at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau from 1923 to 1929 Between her studies at these two schools Brandt worked as a freelance artist 2 She studied painting with the artists Fritz Mackensen and Robert Weise before studying sculpture with Robert Engelmann 3 Although the Bauhaus claimed to welcome any person of good repute without regard to age or sex there was still a strong gender bias Laszlo Moholy Nagy was impressed by Brandt s commitment and work and so he offered her a spot in the Bauhaus metal workshop She ultimately became the only woman to attain her degree in the metal workshop Her fellow students later admitted to Brandt that they had believed that there was no place in the metal workshop for women and so gave her dull dreary work to do later they got along well When Moholy Nagy departed from his Bauhaus teaching post in 1928 Brandt replaced him as acting director of the workshop 4 She is thus credited by some as a pioneer for gender equity in the arts 5 She trained as a painter before joining the Weimar Bauhaus in January of 1924 where she attended classes with Josef Albers Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee among others before joining the metal workshop in summer of the same year 6 7 There she became a student of Hungarian modernist theorist and designer Laszlo Moholy Nagy She quickly rose to the position of workshop assistant when Moholy Nagy left the Bauhaus in 1928 she became the workshop s acting director serving in the post for one year and negotiating some of the most important Bauhaus contracts for collaborations with industry These contracts for the production of lights and other metal workshop designs were a rare example of one of the workshops helping to fund the school One of her lasting contributions are the lamp fittings that she and Max Krajewski de designed for the Bauhaus building in Dessau After leaving the Bauhaus for Berlin in 1929 Brandt worked for Walter Gropius in his Berlin studio From late 1929 through 1932 Brandt was head of design at the Ruppel Metal Goods factory in Gotha Germany until she lost her job due to the ongoing Great Depression Early in 1933 at the beginning of the Nazi period in Germany Brandt first attempted to find work outside of the country but family responsibilities called her back to Chemnitz She was unable to find steady employment throughout the Nazi period In 1939 she became a member of the Reichskulturkammer the Nazi regime s official artists organisation in order to obtain art supplies which would otherwise have been forbidden to her However Brandt was never a member of the Nazi Party After many years of living apart she and Erik Brandt officially divorced in 1935 8 After World War II Brandt remained in Chemnitz to help rebuild her family s home which had been severely damaged in the bombings She lived out her days in East Germany and died in Kirchberg Saxony at the age of 89 9 At the invitation of Mart Stam from 1949 to 1951 Brandt was a lecturer at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts She taught at the Academy of Applied Art in Berlin from 1951 to 1954 10 Work editBrandt s designs for metal ashtrays tea and coffee services lamps and other household objects are now recognized as among the best of the Weimar and Dessau Bauhaus Further they were among the few Bauhaus designs to be mass produced during the interwar period and several of them are currently available as reproductions In an auction in December 2007 one of her teapots the Model No MT49 tea infuser was sold for a record breaking 361 000 11 Beginning in 1926 Brandt also produced a body of photomontage work though all but a few were not publicly known until the 1970s after she had abandoned the Bauhaus style and was living in Communist East Germany Some of the photomontages came to public attention after Bauhaus historian Eckhard Neumann solicited the early experiments stimulated by resurgent interest in modernist experiment in the West These photomontages often focus on the complex situation of women in the interwar period a time when they enjoyed new freedoms in work fashion and sexuality yet frequently experienced traditional prejudices In 1926 Brandt moved with the Bauhaus to Dessau and a year later took charge of lighting design with the metal workshop before becoming its director from 1928 to 1929 Much of Brandt s energy was directed into her lighting designs including collaborations with small number of Bauhaus colleagues and students One of her early projects was the ME78B hanging lamp 1926 This elegant pendant light made of aluminum featured a simple saucer shade combined with an innovative pulley system and counter weight which allowed the height of the lamp to be adjusted with ease the pendant was used in multiple locations in the Dessau campus including the metal weaving and architecture department as well as the dining room of Gropius s own house 12 During the 1930s and 1940s Brandt lived in near isolation despite having many opportunities available to her after her time at Bauhaus She had just finished showing five photographs at the famed FiFo Film and Photography exhibition put on by Werkbund The section her work was shown in was curated by her former mentor Moholy Nagy After traveling from job to job and project to project Brandt lived in her hometown of Chemnitz for sixteen years and did not have any official position She still produced work but it was not for a specific purpose or commission Having picked up painting again during the Nazi period she continued to paint during the GDR in both watercolour and tempera These materials were cheaper and the pieces could be completed more quickly The paintings are sometimes melancholy and depressing but this is not surprising considering their timing during her unemployment and the Nazi period 13 Brandt is also remembered as a pioneering photographer She created experimental still life compositions but it is her series of self portraits which are particularly striking These often represent her as a strong and independent New Woman of the Bauhaus other examples show her face and body distorted across the curved and mirrored surfaces of metal balls creating a blended image of herself and her primary medium at the Bauhaus Brandt was one of few women at Bauhaus who distanced herself from the fields considered more feminine at the time such as weaving or pottery 14 Tea sets edit nbsp Tea pot in silver and ebony 1924 Brandt s tea sets use geometric forms and incorporated ideas from movements such as Constructivism and De Stijl There is little ornamentation The sets used material such as silver plate and brass and ebony for the handles The tea sets were almost entirely handmade but it led to mass production of similar products The reproduction rights to Brandt s original 1924 tea set were granted to Alessi an Italian metalware design company in 1985 15 Along with the rights to the tea set the company also has rights to produce her 1926 ashtray design with removable lid 2 Brandt s tea set designs are characteristic of the early phases of modernism Form predominates over ornament and there is a clear sense of at least symbolic compatibility with modern mass production technology 15 Exhibitions editTempo Tempo The Bauhaus Photomontages of Marianne Brandt Elizabeth Otto a traveling exhibition which was displayed at the Bauhaus Archive Berlin Busch Reisinger Museum at Harvard University Cambridge Massachusetts and the International Center of Photography in New York from 2005 to 2006 Bibliography edit in German Brockhage Hans and Reinhold Lindner 2001 Marianne Brandt Chemnitz Chemnitzer Verlag in English Otto Elizabeth Tempo Tempo The Bauhaus Photomontages of Marianne Brandt 2005 Berlin Jovis Verlag in German and English Otto Elizabeth 2019 Marianne Brandt in Schierz Kai Uwe ed et al 4 Bauhausmadels Gertrud Arndt Marianne Brandt Margarete Heymann Margaretha Reichardt pp 86 119 Dresden Sandstein Kommunikation ISBN 978 3954984596 in German Wynhoff Elisabeth 2003 Marianne Brandt Fotografieren am Bauhaus Hatje Cantz VerlagReferences edit How Bauhaus was shaped into greatness International Herald Tribune a b Icons of Design The 20th Century Munich New York Prestel 2000 pp 36 37 ISBN 978 3791323060 Otto Elizabeth 2005 Tempo tempo Bauhaus Photomontagen von Marianne Brandt the Bauhaus photomontages of Marianne Brandt Berlin Jovis ISBN 3 936314 55 1 OCLC 68941154 Otto Elizabeth 2005 Tempo tempo Bauhaus Photomontagen von Marianne Brandt the Bauhaus photomontages of Marianne Brandt Berlin Jovis ISBN 3 936314 55 1 OCLC 68941154 van den Berg Lynne Marianne Brandt Iconic Bauhaus Designer Mid Century Modern Furniture Then and Now Mid Century Modern Furniture Then and Now Paradigm Retrieved 12 April 2019 Otto Elizabeth 2005 Tempo tempo Bauhaus Photomontagen von Marianne Brandt the Bauhaus photomontages of Marianne Brandt Berlin Jovis ISBN 3 936314 55 1 OCLC 68941154 Nero Julie 2014 Engaging Masculinity Weimar Women Artists and the Boxer Woman s Art Journal 35 1 40 47 ISSN 0270 7993 JSTOR 24395362 Otto Elizabeth 2005 Tempo tempo Bauhaus Photomontagen von Marianne Brandt the Bauhaus photomontages of Marianne Brandt Berlin Jovis ISBN 3 936314 55 1 OCLC 68941154 Photography at the Bauhaus MIT Press 1990 p 342 ISBN 9780262061261 Otto Elizabeth 2005 Tempo tempo Bauhaus Photomontagen von Marianne Brandt the Bauhaus photomontages of Marianne Brandt Berlin Jovis ISBN 3 936314 55 1 OCLC 68941154 vRawsthorn Alice The tale of a teapot and its creator New York Times Retrieved 2 January 2023 Bradbury Dominic 2018 11 06 Essential modernism design between the world wars Benton Tim 1945 Buchanan Mel Hoy Anne H Kentgens Craig Margret 1948 Kugler Jolanthe 1977 Poynor Rick New Haven Connecticut ISBN 9780300238341 OCLC 1030393774 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link Otto Elizabeth 14 May 2013 Marianne Brandt s Experimental Landscapes in Painting and Photography during the National Socialist Period History of Photography 37 2 167 181 doi 10 1080 03087298 2013 769780 S2CID 191542185 Wynhoff Elisabeth 2003 Marianne Brandt Fotografieren am Bauhaus Breuer Gerda Fiedler Jeannine Otto Elizabeth Ostfildern Ruit Hatje Cantz ISBN 9783775713108 OCLC 52114849 a b Icons of design the 20th century Albus Volker 1949 Kras Reyer Woodham Jonathan M Munich Prestel 2000 ISBN 978 3791323060 OCLC 45066681 a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint others link External links edit nbsp Wikimedia Commons has media related to Marianne Brandt designer The Metropolitan Museum of Art New York in German Life and work of Marianne Brandt in German International Marianne Brandt Contest in English Down Tempo by Ben Davis Artnet Magazine Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Marianne Brandt amp oldid 1177755949, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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