Ottilie Kürschner

Ottilie Kürschner (born January 5, 1915 as Ottilie Würster in Kredenbach (Kreuztal) ; † in the 1980s) was a German costume and doll designer .

Ottilie Kürschner was the wife of the puppeteer Erich Kürschner from the Hohnsteiner Puppet Theater (marriage date: December 21, 1946 in Kreuztal / Siegen). She headed the Hohnstein workshop and was responsible for the textile design of thousands of hand puppets and snap-mouth figures . She spent the essential creative part of her life in Essen , where she also died in the 1980s.

When designing her doll costumes, she mainly stuck to the models of Elisabeth Grünwaldt , who, on behalf of the founder of the first Hohnstein doll stage, Max Jacob , had helped shape the style of the later typical Hohnstein figures since the beginning of the 1920s. Initially it was mainly traditional costumes and hairdresses from Bavarian and Saxon customs as well as uniforms and stately garments from the traditional past that shaped Kürschner's doll costumes. Later she modified the doll costumes more and more according to the wishes of her customers; Thus, new types were constantly being added to the traditional puppet game ensemble , such as a friendly traffic policeman for the police puppet stages instead of the blue-uniformed, fairytale-like policeman.

Irma Priese worked alongside Ottilie Kürschner for many years, but without ever wanting to step out of the shadow of Ottilie Kürschner's Hohnstein workshop by name .

source

• Hand puppets and clapper mouth figures dressed by furriers and pries are in the Gerd J. Pohl puppet theater archive .