Helene Haeusler

Helene Haeusler (born 1904 in Metz , Lorraine ; died 1987 in Sonneberg , GDR ) was a German toy designer who developed therapeutic toys for handicapped children, adolescents and adults.

Life

Little is known about Helene Haeusler's childhood. She had two siblings and in 1911 the family moved to Magdeburg . The father was killed in World War I in 1914 , after which the mother and the children moved to live with their parents in Kassel . Haeusler finished her schooling there in 1921 and first learned housekeeping in a small farm near Wolfsburg and then attended the textile class at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Kassel for two semesters . At the request of her grandfather, she initially did not follow her artistic ambitions, but completed an apprenticeship as a kindergarten teacher (now a kindergarten teacher) at the Froebel seminar, which she completed in 1924. Helene Haeusler then attended lectures in art history in Hamburg. She earned her living as a saleswoman in the Hansa workshops. After a year she began studying book and commercial graphics at the State School of Applied Arts in Munich . The class was headed by Professor FH Ehmcke. During her two-year apprenticeship there, Haeusler drew typefaces, designed printed matter and worked with wood and lino printing. In this phase she is said to have designed the Wella hair care logo . At the same time, she began to work three-dimensionally and made crib figures and dolls.

In June 1927 Haeusler accepted a job offer in Sonneberg, Thuringia, and began working as a directrice for Martin Eichhorn's doll factory. For a year she designed and sewed patterns for doll clothes there, but then applied to the more renowned toy company Cuno & Otto Dressel. In 1931 the company brought the “Heinerle” doll designed by Helene Haeusler onto the market in two versions (large and small). In July 1932 Haeussler founded her first own workshop and only worked part-time at Cuno & Dressel.

In 1934 Helene Haeusler became the mother of a daughter born out of wedlock named Gabriele in Munich. Her father Otto Gumpert, an authorized signatory at Cuno & Dressel, was married. Until 1940, the single mother did odd jobs as a graphic artist, but also as a tailor, cleaning lady and gardener. Until the end of the Second World War in 1945, she worked as a housekeeper and nanny in the household of a large family in Munich. Haeusler spent the post-war years in Schlederloh near Wolfrathshausen and continued to work as a nanny and laundress. Her small doll production produced hardly any income, so she had to live in very poor conditions.

In 1954 Haeusler returned to Sonneberg and began to work there as a teacher for toy design at the technical college for applied arts . Renate Müller , a student of Helene Haeusler at the Sonneberg Technical School, who became a successful toy designer herself, said of Helene Häusler: “She was influenced by the Bauhaus, simple design and natural materials were her ideal. At the end of the fifties she had brought her students with them sacks of sugar, from which the first pluckers stuffed with wood wool were made. In Sonneberg, where everything revolved around the stuffed animal, this material was a provocation. "

In the sixties Haeusler began to design special therapeutic toys for children with disabilities. It should be as robust as possible, encourage tactile experiences and stimulate the players' imagination. In 1965 Haeusler retired, ended her teaching activities in order to found her own workshop for the production of therapeutic toys in Jena ("Jenaspiel") in 1966 with some former students. However, the project failed due to resistance from the GDR bureaucracy, and Haeusler was not granted permission. It was not until 1967 that Haeusler succeeded in having their therapeutic toys produced. The Sonneberg company H. Josef Leven KG achieved great sales successes, also in export to the Federal Republic.

In 1977 Haeusler founded a support workshop in Sonneberg where mentally handicapped people sewed dolls and made other toys. She had many contacts with therapeutic facilities for the handicapped in the GDR area and also had toys produced in the workshops there. Haeusler died in Sonneberg in the summer of 1987.

Awards

Helene Haeusler was awarded the GDR design prize in 1982 . In Berlin, a special school for mentally handicapped children and young people in the Pankow district was named after Helene Haeusler.

literature

• Helene Haeusler: Life and work of a toy designer , Dagmar Lüder. Industrial design collection. Berlin 1995.

Movie

• Toys for the weaker - Helene Haeusler , DEFA-Studio for Documentary Films, 1986

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Helene Haeusler: The life and work of a toy designer , Dagmar Lüder. Industrial design collection. Berlin 1995.
2. ↑ Glück im Spiel , interview with Renate Müller in Süddeutsche Zeitung Magazin, issue 30/2013, accessed on February 23, 2016
3. ↑ Homepage of the Helene Haeusler School in Berlin ( Memento of the original from March 10, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ^ Homepage of the DEFA Foundation , accessed on March 2, 2016