Zines : Women of the Bauhaus ( part1)

“A drawing is simply a line going for a walk.“ - Paul Klee

Hello! It’s Lea again.

I hope you had a great week. If you don’t know me, it's nice to meet you! This is Sunday Spreads, my personal illustration challenge based on whatever sparks my interest during the week.

This week, I developed a slight obsession with Women Artists who studied/taught/forged the Bauhaus, this iconic German School of Architecture and Design from the 1920s/30s. My plan was to make a mini-zine for each artist I wanted to study, showing their art and also their process. I think I am very attracted to the art of the creative process, even more than the final artwork.

Anyway, It all began when I saw The Brutalist in the cinema two weeks ago, and I became completely fascinated with the Bauhaus. In the film, the main character, László Tóth—who is fictional but inspired by many famous European artists who immigrated after the war—reveals that he studied at the Bauhaus before the War. The movie serves as both a critique of the American Dream and a stunning exploration of art and architecture.

If you have three hours and 40 minutes to spare, I recommend it! It’s a tough watch, and when I first walked out of the theater, I instinctively rejected it in my mind because of its intense and often violent nature. But over the past two weeks, the film’s themes and poetry stayed with me in a way I didn’t expect. And most importantly it got me curious about the design heritage of the Bauhaus.

Okay let’s start from the beginning, the Bauhaus was created in Weimar, Germany in 1919 by the architect Walter Gropius, and at first he seemed to create a school with perfect equality between men and women students. However, when women started applying and getting in the Bauhaus in great numbers, dear Walter got a bit frightened. ( pictured here dramatically holding his head in his hands)

So he made sure that Women should not be allowed in the architecture department and stick to weaving and in general 2D Artworks because according to him: “ Women cannot see in 3 dimensions.” Sorry ladies… this is just the start of the many prejudices he had against those bright women Artists at his school, but more on that later.

And this is when I realised that architecture is just one department within the Bauhaus, but there were also legendary disciplines like textile design, Iron & Metal work, furniture making, carpentry, and graphic design. Each of these departments produced incredible students, many of whom remain largely unknown. Among them, of course, were many women whose work hasn’t received the recognition it deserves, often overshadowed by the more prominent male figures who taught and graduated from the school.

The Bauhaus had incredible teachers like Paul Klee or Kandinsky, Masters of Modern art and widely recognised for their mastery of Abstraction, shapes, lines and colours. ( I have always felt drawn to their art, mostly thanks to my mum, who collected a lot of posters/postcards from museums and used to hang them around the house)

Which reminds me of those little digital studies I did from some of my favorite artworks from Paul Klee.

So going back to these bright women students at the Bauhaus. Well after they got stuck into weaving and textile art, they revolutionised Textile design, gaining national and international recognition. From inventing new materials to creating beautiful designs. Like these Rugs from Gunta Stölzl:

Or some students also refused weaving / textile design, and insisted to be admitted to more “manly” classes like Ironwork of Carpentry. Like Alma Busher.

Alma was one of the only students allowed to study Carpentry, and she managed by pretending to only “ visit” the Woodworking workshop, while working on her skills and creating pieces that got great recognitions during exhibitions and got financial opportunities with her beautiful wooden toy designs. Poor Walter Gropius was not pleased, fearing that the Bauhaus would be assimilated with womenly craft like weaving or children toys, but eventually agreed to let her practice in the woodworking department. Alma’s toys are still being sold around the world today. Here is the final Zine:

In sequence:

Another legendary Bauhaus alumni was Marianne Brandt, who managed to sneak herself in the Metal working workshop, creating iconic pieces and becoming a great iron craftwomen. She is the only women to have graduated from the metal work department. She shares a passion of mine of doing photograph self portraits in round round reflective objects:

Her iron work designs are still widely recognised today :

Here is the final Zine on Marianne Brandt:

And in sequence:

You can watch the Timelapse process here :

If anyone is interested in printing them at home, you can find them here: LINK TO ZINES

And so my plan is to make 5 mini-zines in total in this series of other iconic Women of the Bauhaus.

Let me know what you think, and don’t hesitate to reach out, I am always looking to connect with fellow artists & illustrators to share the joys and sorrows of creating pretty pictures from our heads.

Lea