Margarete Wendt

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Margarete "Grete" Wendt (born February 24, 1887 in Grünhainichen ; † July 1, 1979 there ) was a German artist , designer and entrepreneur .

Life

Margarete Wendt was born in 1887 as the fourth of five children of Albert and Hedwig Wendt. Her father had been a teacher at the state toy and trade school in Grünhainichen since 1884 and later became its director. At that time, Grünhainichen was a center of traditional Ore Mountain toy production . Margarete Wendt got to know wood turning and the processes of wood production at an early age .

From 1904 to 1907 she attended the private school of the siblings Gertrud , Fritz and Erich Kleinhempel in Dresden as a pre-school for the Dresden Academy of Applied Arts . There she met Margarete Kühn , the daughter of the Dresden architect and building officer Ernst Kühn . Together they prepared for their studies.

Studies for women at the Dresden Academy were only possible from 1907. Margarete Wendt and Margarete Kühn were among the first women in the general student department at the Royal School of Applied Arts in Dresden. They studied u. a. with Erich Kleinhempel, Max Frey and Margarete Junge .

Margarete Wendt completed an internship of several months in the Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau . In 1910, still in her final year of study, Margarete Wendt received an order from Karl Schmidt , the founder of the Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau, to design a Christmas crib for the toy department. The toy factory Theodor Heymann (Dresdner Spielwarenfabrik) from Großolbersdorf took over the production. From October 1911 to July 1912 Margarete Wendt worked for the office of the artists' committee of the Bavarian Trade Show 1912 in Munich. Her tasks included the graphic design of documents for the exhibition.

After graduating, Margarete Wendt worked as a designer for the reform-oriented Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau in the environment of the great minds of modernity, including Richard Riemerschmid .

In 1913 Margarete Wendt took part in a competition organized by the Saxon Homeland Security Association for “good souvenirs”. She achieved second place with her “Berry Children” in a painted chipboard box. The figures, still provided with tablet arms, were very early examples of the blueberry children, which were later mass-produced.

On October 1, 1915, Margarete Wendt and Margarete Kühn founded the Wendt & Kühn company . That cost 1.50 RM and a writing fee of 60 pfennigs . They sold from the start and were already represented at the Leipziger Messe a year later .

In 1937 Margarete Wendt traveled with an angel castle with Madonna to the world exhibition in Paris . This work was awarded a gold medal and the Grand Prix. This meant the international breakthrough for Wendt & Kühn.

Margarete Wendt died in Grünhainichen in 1979. A street in Grünhainichen has been named after her since the beginning of 2015.

Awards (selection)

  • 1913: Landesverein Sächsischer Heimatschutz, 2nd prize for “Beerenkinder” in a painted chipboard box
  • 1937: World Exhibition in Paris, gold medal and Grand Prix

literature

  • Cordula Bischoff, Igor Jenzen: 100 years of Wendt & Kühn. Dresden Modernism from the Ore Mountains . Chemnitzer Verlag, 2016, ISBN 978-3-944509-31-0 .
  • Peter Sundermann: Margarete (Grete) Wendt . In: 100 famous Saxons . Sutton Verlag, Erfurt 2010, ISBN 978-3-86680-606-1 , p. 100 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
  • Cordula Bischoff: Grete Wendt , in: Tulga Beyerle , Klára Němečková (eds.): Against Invisibility: Designers from the Deutsche Werkstätte Hellerau, 1898–1938 . Munich: Hirmer, 2018 ISBN 978-3-7774-3218-2 , p. 218

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Cordula Bischoff, Igor Jenzen: 100 years of Wendt & Kühn. Dresden Modernism from the Ore Mountains . Chemnitzer Verlag, 2016, ISBN 978-3-944509-31-0 .
  2. ↑ Cordula Bischoff: The first women's class of the Royal Saxon School of Applied Arts in Dresden . In: Marion Welsch and Jürgen Vietig (eds.): Margarete Junge. Artist and teacher on the move to the modern age . Sandstein Verlag, Dresden 2016, ISBN 978-3-95498-218-9 , pp. 84-103 .
personal data
SURNAME Wendt, Margarete
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Wendt, Grete (nickname)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German artist, designer and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH February 24, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Grünhainichen
DATE OF DEATH July 1, 1979
Place of death Grünhainichen