Marianne Brandt

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Marianne Brandt (October 1, 1893 – June 18, 1983) was a German designer involved with the Bauhaus beginning in 1923, where her designs for practical metal objects formed an important part of the repertoire. Many of these designs -- including lamps, ashtrays and other household objects -- remain in production today. Brandt was a student of Hungarian modernist theorist and designer László Moholy-Nagy and succeeded him as director of the Bauhaus metal workshop in 1928, serving in the post for one year and negotiating some of the most important Bauhaus collaborations with industry. She subsequently worked for Walter Gropius in his Berlin studio before becoming head of design at the Ruppel firm in Gotha. Brandt is also remembered as a pioneering photographer.

Beginning in 1926, Brandt also produced a body of photomontage work, though all but a few were not publicly known until the 1970s after Brandt had abandoned the Bauhaus style and was living in Communist East Germany. 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. The photomontages were subject of the touring exhibition entitled Tempo, Tempo! The Bauhaus Photomontages of Marianne Brandt, organized by Elizabeth Otto, which appeared at the Bauhaus-Archiv in Berlin, Harvard's Busch-Reisinger Museum and the International Center of Photography from 2005 to 2006. Otto's catalogue of the same name explores these works.

[edit] External links

• (German) Life and work of Marianne Brandt
• (German) International Marianne Brandt Contest
• (English) DesignAddict
• (English) "Down Tempo" by Ben Davis, Artnet Magazine

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