#art, Marguerite Wildenhain in The Women Artists Series

Marguerite was formed…artistically…in the Bauhaus… She was a ceramist, educator and writer. She was born in 1896 in Lyon, but from 1940 she lived in the United States… As of 1914 she was studying sculpture at Berlin’s University of the Arts (Universität der Künste Berlin), the biggest art academy of Europe. While working at porcelain factory in Rudolstadt Marguerite discovered her passion for the potter’s wheel.

Not long after WWI, and while in Weimar for a few days, she discovered Walter Gropius’s proclamation reference the inauguration of the Bauhaus school (1919): «A new artisan guild, without class distinctions, is lifting the arrogant barrier between artisans and artists». Immediately she enrolled as one of the first female students. She studied at the Dornburg Bauhaus from 1919 to 1925. Among her peers were Paul Klee and Vasili Kandinsky.

In 1925 Marguerite became the first woman to obtain the Master Potter Certification in Germany… In 1940, now living in California, Wildenhain became a professor at the California College of the Arts in Oakland and relocated to the artists colony of Pond Farm, created by architect Gordon Herr and his wife Jane…

Marguerite published three books: Pottery: Form and Expression; The Invisible Core: A Potter’s Life and Thoughts; and That We Look and See: An Admirer Looks at the Indians. She was an avid lecturer who gave conferences in schools throughout the US, South and Central America, Europe and the Middle East…

Marguerite Wildenhain died at the age of 88 years in California.

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CHEERS