Margarete Seeler

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Margarete Seeler, around 1975

Margarete Seeler (born September 1, 1909 in Berlin-Schöneberg ; † January 7, 1996 in Kennebunkport , Maine , USA ) was a German enamel artist , goldsmith , graphic artist , painter and author . As an enameller, she mainly worked on gold, silver and copper. The many enamel techniques used by Margarete Seeler include cloisonné , champslevé , plique-à-jour , grisaill painting and sieve enamel. Today, Seeler is one of the well-known enamel artists in the USA, where she taught the various enamel techniques as a teacher between 1957 and 1990 and published two books on the art of enamelling.

Life

Margarete Seeler spent her school days from 1915 to 1925 at the Uhland Lyzeum in Berlin. In 1925 she was accepted at the United State Schools for Free and Applied Arts in Berlin-Charlottenburg. There she studied drawing and painting with Wilhelm Tank , and there she also learned the various printing and graphic techniques in the master's studio for graphics , which was headed by Käthe Kollwitz at the time . From 1927 to 1930 Margarete Seeler completed additional training as a goldsmith and enameller, also at this university.

From 1931 to 1934, Seeler worked as a freelance enameller, graphic artist and portrait painter, mainly in Berlin and Italy. From 1934 to 1935 she traveled around the world as a passenger on various cargo ships, which took her to China, Java, Bali, India, Egypt and the USA, among others. From 1936 to 1948 Margarete Seeler lived and worked in Berlin. In 1938 she married the goldsmith Herbert Zeitner . The sons Johann Nikolaus (* 1939) and Peter Otto Anton (* 1942) emerged from this marriage. They were separated in 1942. In 1948 Margarete Seeler left the city and moved to southern Germany with her sons. The experience of the war years shaped her work.

In 1957 Margarete Seeler emigrated to the USA, where she became one of the most productive and respected enamel artists in the country in the following years , but she did not take citizenship of the United States until 1985. In 1993 Margarete Seeler became a Fellow of the American Craft Council .

Create

Margarete Seeler: "Family Cup", approx. 1974
Margarete Seeler: "Unisono", 1992
Margarete Seeler: "Year of the Child", 1979

Margarete Seeler's work spans the entire spectrum of enamel and goldsmithing. These include brooches, necklaces, rings, boxes, necklaces of honor, cups and goblets, crosses, as well as works for public institutions, such as the Year of the Child plaque for the United Nations Children's Fund, UNICEF . Her repertoire also includes cheerful subjects such as The Perfect Lady , Unison and those that stimulate thought and which she called allegories for skeptics . B. the plaque Leonardo . There are also many portraits that she made in grisaille painting. The diversity of her artistic abilities is also evident in her work for churches and museums, including the panel painting for Temple Emanu-El in Wichita , Kansas , or the triptych Path of Destruction for the Wichita Art Museum . For Margarete Seeler, drawing has always been inextricably linked with her work as an enameller.

Teaching activity (selection)

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1958: Wichita Art Museum
  • 1961: Museum of Contemporary Crafts of the American Craftsmen's Council
  • 1966: Trinity Church Festival of the Arts, Southport, Conn.
  • 1988: Boston Museum of Fine Arts
  • 1987: The Taft Museum, Cincinnati
  • 1981: International Email Exhibition Coburg / Germany
  • 1988: Badische Landesbibliothek , Karlsruhe

Publicly owned work (selection)

  • Boston Museum of Fine Arts
  • Art Museum Wichita
  • Temple Emanu-El Wichita
  • St. Peters Episcopalian Church Londonderry, Mass.
  • University of Bridgeport

Publications

  • The Art of Enameling: How to shape precious metal and decorate it with cloisonne, champleve, plique-a-jour, mercury gilding and other fine techniques. Van Nostrand Reinhold, New York, 1975, ISBN 978-0-442-28164-9 .
  • Enamel Medium for Fine Art. Dorrance Publishing, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA) 1997, ISBN 0-8059-3942-3 , ISBN 978-0-8059-3942-2 .

literature

  • Bernard N. Jazzar, Harold B. Nelson: Little Dreams in Glass and Metal: Enameling in America 1920 to the Present. Enameling Arts Foundation, Los Angeles 2015, ISBN 978-1-4696-2636-9 , pp. 212-213.
  • Wolfgang Klose: The winged snail. On Margarete Seeler's enamel art. Lecture on the occasion of the opening of the exhibition “Margarete Seeler. Emailkunst. ”On May 31, 1988 in the Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe / Wolfgang Klose, Badische Bibliotheksgesellschaft (lectures / Badische Landesbibliothek; 18), Karlsruhe 1988, ISBN 3-89065-019-8 .

Web links

Commons : Margarete Seeler  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pat Kirkham: Woman Designers in the USA, 1900-2000: Diversity and Difference. Yale University Press, New York / New Haven / London 2002, pp. 240–241.
  2. ↑ [1]
personal data
SURNAME Seeler, Margarete
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German enamel artist, goldsmith, graphic artist, painter and author
DATE OF BIRTH September 1, 1909
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin-Schöneberg
DATE OF DEATH January 7, 1996
Place of death Kennebunkport , Maine , USA