As one of the most influential modernist art school of the 20th century, the Bauhaus is regarded as a significant revolution in design. When it comes to the Bauhaus, some male artists such as Walter Gropius, Josef Albers, László Moholy-Nagy and Paul Klee are more familiar to a general audience. However, the female artists who also made great contributions to the Bauhaus are often recorded in the history books as wives of male designers, worse still, they are completely forgotten (Billard, 2018). In an era when female artists were continuously marginalized, Marianne Brandt, one of the Bauhaus female designer, had set her heart on design throughout her life.
Brandt is a German designer who could be considered one of the most successful female artists of the Bauhaus (Otto, 2013). She studied a wide range of disciplines such as painting, sculpture, photography, and design before she joined the Bauhaus school (Otto, 2013). In 1919, Walter Gropius founded the Bauhaus school and indicated that “any person whose basic technique is sufficient would be admitted without regard to age or sex” (Billard, 2018). While the Bauhaus provided an opportunity for women to get into art and design fields, the underlying ideas of Gropius were still affecting his behaviour. For example, women were only allowed to study in textiles, weaving, and pottery rather than the industrial design department (Veit, 2015). However, Brandt was admitted into the metalwork department based on her prominent work, which was outside the traditional arts and crafts areas associated with women (Billard, 2018). After joining the metal workshop, Brandt still suffered discrimination and treated unfairlyas she was a woman (Ritson, 2013). According to Bruce and Lewis, it is hard for female designers to study or work in the society if they are small minority in the group (Bruce and Lewis, 1990). However, through the persistence of Brandt, she finally gained recognition from other male designers in the metal workshop and took on leadership roles (Otto, 2013).
Followed the design principle of the Bauhaus, Brandt designed numerous commercially successful objects that paid more attention on industrial design and mass production. This period at the Bauhaus was the most fulfilling chapter of Brandt’s life. In 1924，Brandt designed a geometric tea infuser that became widely known (Otto, 2013). Another representative artwork of Brandt, shown in Figure 1, was the Kandem Bedside Table Lamp that designed for the lighting firm Kandem in 1928 (Veit, 2015). This lamp was made by warm yellow enamelled metal with a cast iron base (Veit, 2015). The delicate lampshade would create an illuminated arc. With the aim of mass production, the lamp composed of basic and simple forms. The color it used was simplex. The base and the lampshade were connected by an adjustable neck that allowed to vary the direction of the light. Without any decoration, the lamp emphasized functionality and practicability by its simple and industrial design. The lamp that designed by Brandt help the Bauhaus establish the cooperative relations with the lighting company, which further influenced the Bauhaus to shift from handcraft to industrially mass produced products (Veit, 2015). In addition, Kandem sold more than 50,000 lamps in next few years (Veit, 2015). Meanwhile, this lamp became a milestone in design history and had a great impact on the modern lamp design.
When Brandt left the Bauhaus at the end of 1929, she started to work on furniture and interior design. Afterwards, she worked as an independent design consultant in 1932 and produced a number of photographs and photomontages (Otto, 2013). Although Brandt established her reputation when she worked at the Bauhaus, the employment opportunities were still limited and it was difficult to achieve her value and gain social recognition like other male colleagues after she left the Bauhaus (Otto, 2013). Gradually, Brandt’s works were overlooked or even forgotten by people. As Magdalena Droste said, the fact that Brandt was a woman had a strong effect on her fate and life, especially in an age that discriminated against female (Otto, 2013). Brandt’s work had never gained much academic attention as same as the Bauhaus period. After the World War II, Brandt was unable to find a regular job as a designer because she was a female so that she applied herself to painting and sculpture for survival (Veit, 2015). In the 1940s and 50s, women artists lost a large amount of space and their effect was more limited to the ornament, rather than the function (Bruce and Lewis, 1990).
In the following decades, Brandt accepted the reality of life and took lots of photographs in order to stress the significance of women (Otto, 2013). For affecting a new generation of designers, Brandt worked as a teacher in Dresden College of Fine Art and Berlin College of Applied Art (Otto, 2013). In her late years, a series of exhibitions and auctions of the Bauhaus artworks were held, which helped Brandt’s work attract wider attention again and be rediscovered and sufficiently acknowledged (Otto, 2013).
Nowadays, although the representative figures of the Bauhaus that most people known still are male designers, Brandt, as one of the female artists of the Bauhaus, also has a great influence on modern design. Moreover, it is clear that the continuing marginalization of women within design still exists in our society. As one of the representative personage of female designers, Marianne Brandt’s works are exhibited at many art museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum and the MoMA in New York (Billard, 2018), which encourage more women to fight against the gender discriminationand pursue their ideals in the male-dominated fields constantly.
Reference
Figure 1. Marianne Brandt, Kandem Bedside Table Lamp (basic version) no. 702, 1928.
Billard, Jillian. (2018). The Other Art History: The Forgotten Women of Bauhaus. [online] Artspace. Accessed 13/07/2018. Available at: https://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/in_depth/the-other-art-history-the-forgotten-women-of-bauhaus-55526
Bruce, Margaret. Lewis, Jenny. (1990). Women designers — is there a gender trap? Design Studies, 11(2), pp.114-120.
Otto, Elizabeth. (2013). Marianne Brandt’s Experimental Landscapes in Painting and Photography during the National Socialist Period. History of Photography, 37(2), pp.167-181.
Ritson, Julia. (2013). Women from History: Marianne Brandt. [Blog] Creative Women’s Circle. Accessed 02/09/2013. Available at: https://www.creativewomenscircle.com.au/creative-womens-circle/women-history-marianne-brandt
Veit, Rebecca. (2015). Marianne Brandt, Bauhaus Powerhouse. [online] Core77. Accessed 26/05/2015. Available at: https://www.core77.com/posts/36776/Marianne-Brandt-Bauhaus-Powerhouse
Design Research 
You’ve mentioned that Brandt still suffered discrimination and was treated unfairly but did not elaborate. I would have been interested to hear about what kind of behaviour was exhibited towards her and if those behaviours are any different to what we see today. Implicit gender bias is still strongly prevalent. There are countless studies to show that male employers favour masculine traits and therefore will have a preference to hire male employees. This is despite having female applicants that are far superior in talent (Lazarus and Steigerwalt 2018).
You’ve also mentioned that through persistence she was able to gain recognition amongst other men. I’m curious to know how much harder she had to work, learn and exhibit in order to gain recognition. How much extra time and effort did she put into her own success? It also makes me wonder if this made her a better designer over her co-workers. As discussed in my own essay, I believe a good designer is experienced and well educated. Through experiencing the “double standard” it arguably made Brandt a better and well rounded designer.
You mention that Brandt eventually “accepted the reality of life” which is actually very depressing to read. It is also infuriating because we have all this history to reflect upon from which we have clearly identified that there is something wrong here. But it is so ingrained and programmed into society that there seems to be no strong solution. It is a never ending circle of suppression. Brandt is a prime example; she could not find work in the areas that most interested her because nobody would accept a female designer in those fields. So she was ultimately forced to do what society believed she should do which only confirmed that it was the only thing she could do. And there she was stuck.
References
Lazarus, Jeffrey, and Amy Steigerwalt. Genddered Vulnerability : How Women Work Harder to Stay in Office. Michigan: Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2018.
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