Marianne Brandt

The German design artist Marianne Brandt (née Marianne Liebe) was born in Chemnitz on October 1, 1893. With her metal designs, which are still produced today as design classics, she is one of the most famous artists of the Bauhaus. In 1911 she initially attended the Fürstliche freie Zeichenschule in Weimar, and from 1912 studied painting and sculpture at the Hochschule für Bildende Kunst in Weimar under Fritz Mackensen, Robert Weise and Richard Engelmann. Her fellow students included Hans Arp, Otto Pankok, Otto Lindig, and her later husband Erik Brandt, whom she married in 1919 and went to Norway. Erik and Marianne Brandt live briefly in Kristiania (now Oslo), take study trips, and spend almost a year in Paris before returning to Weimar around 1922. In 1923 the painter Erik Brandt returns alone to Norway, there are differences, but the marriage is not divorced until 1935. Marianne Brandt enrolls as a student at the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1924, at the age of 31. She turns away from painting and destroys most of the paintings and drawings she has created up to that point. Designer in the metal workshop at the Bauhaus. From 1924 Marianne Brandt studies, among other things - as the only woman - in the metal workshop with László Moholy-Nagy. In the years 1924-1929 Marianne Brandt created a dense succession of designs for ashtrays, coffee and tea services, and 28 designs for lamps alone, most of which are now icons of Bauhaus design. From 1926 Marianne Brandt is deputy director of the metal workshop. She is responsible for projects in collaboration with industry and works in the metal workshop with Christian Dell, Hans Przyrembel and Wilhelm Wagenfeld. In 1929 Marianne Brandt receives her Bauhaus diploma and subsequently works for a short time in the architectural office of Walter Gropius in Berlin. Important Bauhaus artist and designer of numerous design icons. In the period after the Bauhaus, Marianne Brandt started her career as an independent industrial designer, which, however, was abruptly halted. From 1929 to 1932 she was head of the design department of the metal goods factory Ruppelwerk GmbH in Gotha, renewing and modernizing its product range. At the end of 1932 she was dismissed due to the poor economic situation, and in 1933 the National Socialists seized power. Marianne Brandt returned to painting and lived a very secluded life in Chemnitz. 1949-1951 Marianne Brandt received a teaching assignment at the Hochschule für Werkkunst in Dresden. 1951-1954 she worked for the Institute for Industrial Design at the Berlin-Weißensee Art Academy. In 1954 she returns to Chemnitz. Now 61 years old, the modern designer finds herself confronted with the dogmatic guidelines in the so-called Formalism Controversy, the cultural debate to distinguish GDR art from the "Western decadent art business." Her numerous iconic designs became part of the most important international design collections, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the British Museum in London, the Busch-Reisinger Museum in Massachusetts and the Grassimuseum in Leipzig. Marianne Brandt died in Kirchberg near Zwickau on June 18, 1983.