Together with Anni Albers and Otti Berger, they left an avant-garde legacy in textile and sewing factories that still influences contemporary art.
Out of the 24 women who graduated from the Bauhaus, 14 did so in textile: Anneliese (Anni) Albers, Ruth Hollós, Helene Nonné-Schmidt, Helene Bergner, Gertrud Preiswerk, Margarete Dambeck, Otti Berger, Margarethe Leischner, Margareta Reichardt, Elisabeth Henneberger, Catharina Fischer-van der Mijll Decker, Tonja Rapaport, Ruth Cohn, Greten Fischer.
Some women who studied textile ended up working in another field, as it is the case of Marianne Brandt, who went from the textile workshop to the metal one. She had to fight the workshop directors, but proved her great skill and became one of the most prolific alumna of the Bauhaus. Alma Buscher changed from textile to carpentry.
Lotte Stam Beese was also a student there. She went through different workshops and was the first woman to be accepted in the architecture workshop. However, she did not graduate from the Bauhaus, but she did so in Holland, as an architect and urbanist.
Gunta Stölzl
Munich,German Empire 05-03-1897 | Männedorf, Switzerland 22-04-1983
Period of activity: From 1919 until 1983
Geographical classification: Europe > Germany
Socio-cultural movements
Late modern period / Contemporary period > Artistic movements since the end of the 19th century > Rationalist architecture / Modern movement > Bauhaus
Late modern period / Contemporary period > Artistic movements since the end of the 19th century > Post-war art
Late modern period / Contemporary period > Artistic movements since the end of the 19th century > Art from the first third of the 20th century
Groups by dedication
Plastic, visual and performing artists > Lighting designers and technicians
Plastic, visual and performing artists > Textile artists
Plastic, visual and performing artists > Decorators / Set designers
Educators > Teachers / Lecturers / Professors
Educators > School teachers
Professionals / Other groups > Workshop teachers
Context of feminine creation
Review
The fabrics in Gunta Stölzl loom are characterised for the intricate artisanal work they required and the great variety of knots used. Her carpets emit rhythm and an accurate composition, and are not limited to a lineal or vertical scheme. There are figurative motifs, such as cows in a field, or religious iconography. But, fundamentally, Gunta introduces abstract art in textile, highly influenced by Johannes Itten, one of her teachers, in the use of colours and contrasts.
Justifications
Biography
Gunta Stölzl studied decorative painting, painting on glass, ceramics, art history and stylistics at the School of Applied Arts in Munich, between 1914 and 1916. During the war, between 1916 and 1918, she worked as a Red Cross nurse.
In 1919, after coming back for a short period of time to the School of Applied Arts in Munich, she started her studies at the Bauhaus school in Weimar, the first headquarters of the school. In the winter 1919, 1920, Gunta was accepted in the preliminary course taught by Johannes Itten, the glass painting workshop and the mural painting workshop directed by Itten himself and Helene Börner.
Between 1921 and 1925 she practised in the textile workshop with Georg Muche and had lessons on colour theory with Johannes Itten, on visual thought with Paul Klee and on abstraction with Wassily Kandinsky. These three teachers had a great influence on Gunta.
After she was made "official" (as a teacher) in the Bauhaus, and before she joined the teaching staff, Gunta Stölzl lived in Zurich, where she organised the Ontos textile workshops in 1924, as commanded by Johannes Itten, where she also developed some dyeing techniques. Her work was characterised by applying the aesthetic principles of the Bauhaus: constant experimentation with textile materials to obtain new, resistant, cheap fabrics that were made even cheaper when mass-produced so that the works could be assimilated into the industrial process. It had, probably, a greater relevance that other Bauhaus experiences.
From 1925 to 1926, Stölzl was teacher of shaping in the textile workshop in the Bauhaus in Dessau. She would then become its director from October 1925 to September 1931.
Among her projects, Gunta Stölzl developed tapestries, carpets and dustsheets for some furniture designed by Marcel Breuer at Bauhaus Dessau, as well as seats for particular chairs, such as the African chair.
In 1928 she travelled to Moscow with other members of the Bauhaus to participate in the Vkhutemas, the Russian state art and technical school.
In 1929, she married Arieh Sharon, a Jewish Bauhaus student from Palestine, and they had a daughter, Yael, that same year.
Due to the harassment she received by Nazis at the Bauhaus after marrying a Jewish man, Miles van der Rohe, then director of the school, asked for Gunta's resignation in 1931. She was replaced by Lilly Reich. After she left the Bauhaus in Dessau, she moved to Switzerland.
In 1932 she founded the hand-made textile company S-P-H-Stoffe in Zurich with Gertrud Preiswerk and Heinrich-Otto Hürlimann, both former students at the Bauhaus. In 1933, they had to close due to some financial problems, but Stölzl and Hürlimann continued managing the company under the name S-H-Stoffe.
In 1936, Gunta divorced Arieh Sharon and in 1937 she received the Commemorative Diploma in Paris World Exhibition. That same year, Hürlimann left the company and Gunta renamed it Sh-Stoffe.
In 1942, she married the Swiss writer Willy Stadler, and got the Swiss nationality. In 1943, her second daughter, Monika Agnes, was born. In the following years, the interest for Gunta's work increased. In 1967, she quit the workshop and decided to focus on individual tapestries.
In the 36 years that Gunta run her workshops, her pieces were highly valued by avant-garde architects and awarded in multiple international competitions. She also received numerous commissions.
She was an active artist until her death in 1983: she participated in the Society of Swiss Women Painters, Sculptors and Craftswomen and in the Werkbund association.
Works
English
Spanish
Gunta Stölzl work includes a great variety of textiles, tapestries and carpets.
It can be classified into four periods:
Weimar period: 1919-1925
Dessau period: 1925-1931
Zurich I period: 1932-1966
Zurich II period: 1967-1983
During her career, Gunta Stölzl was a coordinator of textile workshops, director of the textile workshop at the Bauhaus and, from 1932 on, she established her own business in companies and workshops.
Bibliography
Redondo, María. “Gunta Stölzl, profesora y directora del taller textil de la Bauhaus” 11/11/2021, in Metalocus, <https://www.metalocus.es/es/noticias/gunta-stolzl-profesora-y-directora-del-taller-textil-de-la-bauhaus>
La Web de las Biografías, 11/11/2021, (online, <http://www.mcnbiografias.com/app-bio/do/show?key=stolzl-gunta>)
Gunta Stölzl, 11/11/2021, <https://www.guntastolzl.org/>
Wortmann Weltge, Sigrid. “Gunta Stölzl”, 11/11/2021, (online,
<https://www.guntastolzl.org/Literature/Articles-and-Essays/Empty-2/i-rzRQWLc>)
Catalán Bueno, Alejandro; Lara Barahona-Ostos, Miguel; Montoro Poza, Manuela. “100 años de la BAUHAUS – GUNTA STOLZL”, 11/11/2021, in Universidad de Alcalá, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giU5UD8lkw0>
Barbican Centre
“Bauhaus: Art as Life - Gunta Stölzl: A Daughter's Perspective”, 11/11/2021, in Barbican Centre, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HWDWr1RKe8>
Didactic approach
This sheet for author can be studied in the following fields and subjects:
Visual and plastic arts
Design
Architecture
Art