BRIEFING
EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service
Author: Ivana Katsarova
Members' Research Service
PE 689.355 – March 2021
EN
The Bauhaus movement: Where are
the women?
SUMMARY
Bauhaus, arguably the most influential art and design movement in history, celebrated its centenary
in 2019. While many of the avant-garde genres that helped shape modern art focused on painting,
the Bauhaus movement encompassed a wide array of media, materials, and disciplines, ranging
from the fine arts to architecture and design. Bauhaus is renowned for its smart use of resources,
simplicity, effectiveness and polished, smooth lines. Its principles still influence the design of
contemporary architecture and everyday objects, embodied in the belief that 'Less is more'.
In an era when women had no access to public education in many fields, Bauhaus director
Walter Gropius proclaimed that the institution would be open to 'any person of good repute,
regardless of age or sex'. However, although the movement was largely populated by women, the
names recorded in history are mainly those of men, while female Bauhaus creators are mostly
remembered as their wives or assistants. Indeed, these pioneering creators were tolerated, rather
than welcomed.
By many accounts, the early years of the Bauhaus restricted women to areas deemed proper for their
gender, such as textiles and weaving, while discouraging them from indulging in architecture,
sculpture or painting. Similarly, no matter how talented, women had very little opportunity to teach
at the school and did not receive apprenticeship certificates, which prevented them from acquiring
master's diplomas and ultimately placed limits on their careers.
In spite of these difficulties, women
Bauhauslers
arguably turned such constraints into an
advantage. Under the direction of Gunta Stölzl, the Bauhaus weaving department became one of
the school's most successful fields, with fabrics from the weaving workshop being very successful
commercially. Architect Lilly Reich, metal designer Marianne Brandt, wood sculptor
Alma Siedhoff-Buscher and photographer Lucia Moholy are just some of those iconic Bauhaus
figures. In recent years, an increasing number of museums pays tribute to their pioneering work and
legacy.
In this Briefing
How it all started
Bauhaus: A comprehensive artwork
The 'forgotten' women of the Bauhaus
EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service
2
How it all started
The
Staatliches Bauhaus
– commonly known as the Bauhaus, literally
meaning 'house construction' – originated as a German school of the
arts in the early 20th century. Founded by Walter Gropius in 1919, the
school became famous for its approach to design, which attempted to
unify the principles of mass production with individual artistic vision
and strove to combine aesthetics with everyday function.
Bauhaus was grounded in the idea of creating a
Gesamtkunstwerk
– a
comprehensive artwork – in which all the arts would eventually come
together. Gropius expanded on this vision in the 1919 Bauhaus
Proclamation, describing a craft guild uniting architecture, sculpture,
and painting into a single creative expression. Bauhaus training was
centred on a craft-based curriculum
, instilled jointly by an artist and a
master craftsman, to help develop each student's creative
'ambidexterity', consisting of sensitivity to art and manual skills.
Illustrating the school's international background, prominent figures
within the movement included Swiss painter Paul Klee, Hungarian
designer László Moholy-Nagy, Russian painter Wassily Kandinsky, German architect
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Dutch painter Theo van Doesburg and Hungarian-born architect and
furniture designer Marcel Breuer.
Three German cities – Weimar (1919-1925), Dessau (1925-1932) and Berlin (1932-1933) were home
to the school, under three different architect-directors: Walter Gropius (1919-1928), Hannes Meyer
(1928-1930) and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe (1930-1933). The institution was finally closed under
pressure from the Nazi regime, as its social progressiveness and internationalism were equated with
Bolshevism and its new aesthetic was perceived as degenerate. Gropius and other prominent
members emigrated to the United States of America in the 1930s, and later influenced the
development of modernism in the 1950s and 1960s.
Bauhaus: A comprehensive artwork
Bauhaus architecture: Simplicity in multiplicity
In 1925, Gropius designed an emblematic building
to house the Bauhaus school, which relocated from
Weimar to Dessau (see Figure 2). The building
exhibited many features that later became
hallmarks of modernist architecture. Composed of
intersecting horizontal and vertical lines and
planes, the building's pin-wheel plan, breaks free of
ornamentation to focus on simple, rational and
functional design, thus transcending traditional
symmetry and embodying one of Bauhaus' main
principles – 'Form follows function'.
Another core tenet of Bauhaus, 'Truth to materials',
celebrates modern materials – steel, glass and
concrete – in their most natural form, allowing
them to be seen, rather than covered up.
The largest concentration of Bauhaus-style buildings in the world can be found in Israel. Listed as
UNESCO World Cultural Heritage
, Tel Aviv's 'White City' has over 4 000 Bauhaus buildings, many of
which designed by architects of Jewish descent who fled the Nazis in the 1930s.
Figure 1 – Swinging, 1925
© Wassily Kandinsky, Public domain,
Wikimedia commons
Figure 2 – The Bauhaus school in Dessau
Photo credit: © Pecold / Adobe Stock
The Bauhaus movement: Where are the women?
3
Bauhaus design and typography: Less is more
Bauhaus design is renowned for its smart use of resources,
simplicity, effectiveness and polished, smooth lines (see Figure 4
below). Its principles still influence the shape and look of
contemporary objects.
For example, Steve Jobs
publicly discussed his embrace of the
Bauhaus simplicity and its impact on Apple products' aesthetic.
Sir Terence Conran, founder of Habitat, was also inspired by
Bauhaus' 'bold and open' approach. Similarly, fitted kitchens, or
the concept of the well-known and popular IKEA modular
furniture, was influenced by the classic creations of Bauhaus
designers.
In addition, the Bauhaus modernist posters featuring simplified
geometric sans-serif typography and blocks of colour are
credited for the development of modern day graphic design
(see Figure 3). One of the most notable example of the genre is
Barack Obama's presidential campaign poster.
Bauhaus art: Proficiency in their craft is essential to every artist
Fine art became a major offering at the school in 1927, with free painting classes taught by Paul Klee
and Wassily Kandinsky. Instruction focused less on function (like so many Bauhaus offerings) and
more on abstraction. Inspired by architecture, the carefully balanced compositions by
Wassily Kandinsky (see Figure 1) and Paul Klee would typically exhibit flat planes and overlapping
shapes to amplify the sense of scale and proportion. In addition to paintings, Bauhaus artists often
produced abstract sculptures and avant-garde collages.
The 'forgotten' women of the Bauhaus
What went wrong
In an era when women could not receive a public education in
many fields, Gropius proclaimed that the Bauhaus would be
open to 'any person of good repute, regardless of age or sex'.
Gropius' idea was so well-received that in the first year, more
women applied than men, causing concern
that a too high
proportion of female students would reduce the new school's
credibility.
Indeed, these pioneering creators were tolerated rather than
welcomed. By many accounts, the early years of the Bauhaus
confined women to certain areas deemed proper for their
gender. Gropius allegedly believed that men's and women's
brains functioned differently: men had the capacity to think in
three dimensions while women did not. Young women could
thus develop their creativity in weaving, but were discouraged
from indulging in architecture, sculpture or painting.
Another source of criticism surrounds the belief that Gropius's
proclamation of gender equality remained very much
theoretical and outside the teaching field. Indeed, this is clearly reflected by the gender ratio in the
institution, in which only 6 out of 45 faculty members were female at the Weimer location, and this
figure improved little over time.
Figure 4 – Lilly
Reich and
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Weissenhof
chair, re-edition
Photo credits © Christian Drescher,
Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
Figure 3 – Joost Schmidt, Bauhaus
exhibition 1923
Photo credit © Public domain, Wikimedia
Commons
EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service
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Similarly, due to the initially high influx of female students, Gropius modified the enrollment policy
to accept 'only women of extraordinary talents', which ultimately led to a decrease in female
students.
Regrettably, the school did not offer apprenticeship certificates
in weaving, thus making it
impossible for women to register with the Chamber of Trade, which prevented them from acquiring
master's diplomas and ultimately placed limits on their careers.
It comes then as no surprise that although the Bauhaus movement was largely populated by
women, the names recorded in history are those of men, while female Bauhaus creators are often
remembered as their wives or assistants. However, although determined by their gender, Bauhaus
women arguably turned this constraint into an advantage.
Iconic female Bauhaus figures
The remarkable group of women weavers – including
Gunta Stölzl, Anni Albers, Otti Berger and others – formed a
critical mass in the school, developing a sophisticated modern
teaching of weaving that both extended the remit of the
Bauhaus and also importantly represented an alternative
trajectory.
Weaver Gunta Stölzl became known for her intricate, colourful
designs
(see Figure 5). Piloting the move from individual pictorial
weaving to modern industrial designs, while also implementing
the study of mathematics, she encouraged experimentation with
unorthodox materials such as cellophane, fiberglass, and metal.
Stölzl was the only woman master teacher and under her
direction (1926-1931), the Bauhaus weaving department
became one of the school's most sought-after. Fabrics from the
weaving workshop became
commercially successful, providing
the school with vital and much needed funds.
After Stölzl left the school in 1931, another pioneering textile
artist, Anni Albers, stepped in to head the workshop. Weaving
offered Albers a way to
bridge the divide between art and design.
Her early tapestries had a considerable impact on the
development of geometric abstraction in the visual arts (see
Figure 6). Juxtaposing innovative materials such as cellophane,
horsehair, cotton and jute, Albers developed prototypes for
adaptable partitions in response to developments in modernist
architecture, such as open-plan spaces and large glass windows.
In 1949, Anni Albers was the first woman textile artist to hold a
solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York
(MoMA), and in 1965 she published her renowned book 'On
Weaving', which would later become a landmark text in the
world of weaving.
This masculinisation of the Bauhaus school accentuated in the
early 1930s during Mies van der Rohe's period as a director. His
teachings were oriented mainly towards architecture and
metalwork, two fields from which women had been long
discouraged. However, one student, Lilly Reich, managed to
make inroads into this 'men only club', on the strength of her
talent and without ever studying architecture.
Tapestry Red-Green, 1927-1928
Photo credit © Jennifer Mei, Wikimedia
commons, Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC
BY 2.0)
Jacquard Weaving, 1926
Photo credit © Tulip Hysteria, Public
domain, Wikimedia commons
The Bauhaus movement: Where are the women?
5
Mies van der Rohe's collaborator and partner for over 12 years, she took part in various projects,
including an apartment building for the
Deutscher Werkbund
exhibition, the 'Velvet and Silk Cafe'
exhibition in Berlin, and the German pavilion for the 1929 Barcelona International Exhibition.
In 1928, she was appointed 'artistic director' of the German section of the Barcelona Exhibition, sharing
the position with Mies van der Rohe. Reich also contributed to two paramount works of Bauhaus
architecture: the Tugendhat villa and the Lange house. Mies Van der Rohe appointed Reich to the post
of director of the Bauhaus interior and fabric design workshop, a position she held simultaneously at both
the Bauhaus in Dessau, and in Berlin. Reich thus became one of the few educators to teach at both schools.
Marianne Brandt broke the glass ceiling in another
discipline reserved for men – metal. Brandt had many
talents, as a painter, a sculptor, an industrial designer, and
at the end of her life, a photographer. Importantly, she
was the first woman
to attend the metalworking studio
and replaced László Moholy-Nagy as a studio director in
1928.
Many of her designs became iconic expressions of the
Bauhaus aesthetic. Brandt developed one of the most
commercially successful objects to come out of the
school – the best-selling Kandem bedside table lamp. Her
sculptural and geometric silver teapots (see Figure 7)
while never mass-produced, reflect the Bauhaus
emphasis on industrial forms, paying careful attention to
functionality and ease of use, from the non-drip spout to
the heat-resistant ebony handle.
Alma Siedhoff-Buscher was one of the Bauhaus' few
women to switch from the weaving workshop to the
male-dominated wood sculpture department. There, she
created a number of successful toy and furniture designs,
including her 'Little ship-building game,' which remains
in production today (see Figure 8). The game manifests
Bauhaus' central tenets – its 22 blocks, forged in primary
colours, can be used to construct the shape of a boat, or
rearranged to allow for creative experimentation.
However, Siedhoff-Buscher's most ground-breaking work
proved to be the interior she designed for a children's
room at 'Haus am Horn'. Indeed, she created each piece
to 'grow' with the child – a puppet theatre could thus be
transformed into bookshelves, a changing table into a
desk.
Gertrud Arndt's aspired to become an architect, but it
was only after arriving at the Bauhaus in 1923, that she realised architecture classes were not yet
available to women. She took up weaving instead and excelled at the task. Her iconic rug, produced
for Walter Gropius' office is still in production today.
Despite Arndt's success at the loom, she is mainly known for her innovative photography technique.
As a self-taught photographer, Arndt assisted her husband's architectural practice by
photographing their construction sites and buildings. However, it was Arndt's series of self-portraits,
'Mask Portraits', that ultimately shaped her legacy and are now seen as an important forerunner of
feminist artists such as Cindy Sherman.
Figure 8 – Ship-
building game by
Alma Siedhoff-Buscher, 1923
Photo credit: © Axel Hindemith Wikimedia
Commons, Attribution CC BY-SA 3.0
Figure 7 – Teapots by Marianne Brandt, 1924
Photo credit: © Sailko, Wikimedia Commons,
Attribution Share Alike 3.0 Unported
EPRS | European Parliamentary Research Service
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Renewed attention to female Bauhaus figures
The Bauhaus movement celebrated its centenary in 2019. This was an opportunity for the bias
towards the school's male students to be rectified. Weavers, industrial designers, photographers,
and architects, the Bauhaus women not only advanced the school's historic marriage of art and
function, but were also instrumental in laying the groundwork for centuries of art and design
innovation to come.
The majority of these female creators had to flee Germany following the rise of Nazism and
subsequently found it harder than their male counterparts to gain employment. Their works, usually
executed in more transitory materials – less valued and more prone to wear and tear – were often
left behind, unprotected. Even when their creations had been sheltered, they were sometimes
misattributed
, as in the case of Lucia Moholy. Wife of painter and photographer
László Moholy-Nagy, she gave free photography classes and took emblematic pictures of the
Bauhaus and its community. When Moholy fled Germany, she left 560 glass plates behind – which
she later described as her 'only tangible asset' – in the care of Gropius, who went on to use
49 uncredited prints in a 1938 Bauhaus exhibition at the MoMA. Moholy's works therefore promoted
the Bauhaus aesthetic for years without attribution. Ultimately, Moholy won a legal battle for
recognition in 1957, which led to the return of 230 negatives. However, the artist's own husband
also refused to credit her for many of their collaborations, including the celebrated 1925 book
'Painting, Photography, Film'.
In recent years, a growing number of museums have made amends to the 'forgotten' women of the
Bauhaus, by shining a light on their pioneering work and impressive, but often unknown, legacy.
'Bauhaus women
' (2019) hosted by the Bauhaus Archive in Berlin, the latest to date, focused on some
60 Bauhaus artists.
Importantly, the architecture and design departments of most European universities today have
more female students than male. Nevertheless, it remains difficult for women to establish
themselves upon completing their studies and to gain recognition in these professional fields.
Similarly, men still predominate in professorships in architecture and design faculties. While much
has changed for the better with regard to women's rights, compared to the situation at the Bauhaus
in the last century, a breakthrough for women artists is still awaited.
FURTHER READING
Bauhaus online archive, 2021.
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© European Union, 2021
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Photo credits: ©
Bauhaus signet, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons.
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