Marianne Brandt

Marianne Brandt – Encouragement from her parents; education in Weimar

Marianne Brandt was born Marianne Liebe in Chemnitz on 1 October 1893. The daughter of an esteemed lawyer, she had a sheltered childhood and received extensive encouragement from her parents, as did her two sisters, for her artistic talents. Marianne Brandt moved to Weimar in 1911 where she began her artistic education at a private art school. In 1913, she was accepted into the University of Fine Arts, initially attending Robert Weise’s drawing class there and later moving to Fritz Mackensen’s nature class. Her fellow classmates included resounding names such as Hans Arp, Otto Lindig and Otto Pankok – as well as the Norwegian painter Erik Brandt whom she married in 1919 and accompanied to Oslo. Brandt never really felt at home in Oslo, however, and following an extended study trip in Paris, returned to Weimar in 1921 and studied sculpture with Richard Engelmann. In 1923 she began her apprenticeship at the state Bauhaus in Weimar.

Productive years at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau

At the Bauhaus, Marianne Brandt received tuition from Josef Albers, László Moholy-Nagy, Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. Her teacher Moholy-Nagy, to whom she was close, followed her to the newly opened Bauhaus in Dessau where she completed her training in the metal workshop with a journeyman’s examination. Although Brandt only spent five years of her life at the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau, this time is classed as the most fruitful phase of her artistic career. As a woman, she had to fight prejudice and rejection at the beginning, especially when she took over the management of Moholy-Nagy’s workshop after he left. With her pioneering design ideas and her fresh perspective on the materials, she soon earned the respect of her male colleagues. Together with Hin Bredendieck and other Bauhaus artists, Brandt created various product designs for mass production for several German companies. 

Artistically difficult post-war years in the GDR

At the end of 1929, Marianne Brandt left the Bauhaus and worked in the architecture office of Walter Gropius and took on the directorial position at the metal product factory Ruppelwerk GmbH in Gotha. She joined the Reich Chamber of Culture during the National Socialist dictatorship, but never belonged to the NSDAP. For lack of other opportunities for development, Brandt turned to her beginnings as a painter – a frequent motif was the rubble landscapes around her parents’ destroyed home. After the war, the artist lived in the GDR and followed the call of Mart Stam to the Dresden Hochschule für Werkkunst. The so-called Formalism Controversy of the early 1950s made Marianne Brandt’s further artistic work considerably more difficult: the standardised socialist industrial design offered no room for individual realisation. She was also unable to profit from the success of her designs in other countries – ashtrays and bowls were produced in series based on her designs, but the Italian company Alessi responsible for them did not pay the artist any royalties. 

Marianne Brandt died in Kirchberg on 18 June 1983.