Marianne Brandt (1893-1983)
German Artist
Marianne Brandt (b. 1893, née Liebe) enrolled at the Bauhaus in 1924 to study metalwork and became head of the department in 1927.
Her Modernist designs for household objects, such as lamps and pared down geometric silver teapots, were mass produced up until 1933 and are highly collectable today.
Beginning in 1926 while on a sabbatical in Paris, she also produced a body of analytical photomontage work.
It focused on the new freedoms for women in work, fashion, and sexuality, in the face of ongoing prejudices. She used the new accessibility of mass media to challenge pictorial and cultural conventions.
After the war, she turned to teaching and from 1949 to 1951 was a lecturer at the Dresden Academy of Fine Art in the Wood, Metal, and Ceramics department. From 1951 to 1954, she worked at the Academy of Applied Art in Berlin.
Today, Marianne is considered one the luminaries of Modernist photomontage and one of the foremost metalwork designers of the 20th century.
