Illustration Gertrud Kleinhempel. Rug design, c1909.
Gertrud Kleinhempel may well be a largely forgotten name today; however, she was an important component of the design story of Germany. A number of female designers were taking an increasingly important role within the design and decorative world in Germany during the early twentieth century. Despite the fact that frequent barriers and limitations aimed at confining the aspirations and ambitions of women were constantly placed in front of them, a number did break through, particularly at the experimental edge of European design.
Kleinhempel was an important element in both the Vereinigte Werkstatten fur Kunst im Handwerk of Munich and the Werkstatten fur Deutsch en Hausrat of Dresden. More importantly still, she had been one of the founding members of the Deutsche Werkbund in 1907, a movement that tried to rationalise the ideological differences between the various Arts & Crafts movements and that of the needs of industry and mass production.
Kleinhempel's surviving design work, though not exceedingly rare, is limited significantly. She produced furniture, ceramics, lighting, graphics and textiles, though it is her furniture that tends to appear at auction houses today and it is for this medium that she is perhaps better known. Much of her textile work seems largely forgotten or lost, as is the fate with so much textile work of previous generations.
The two rugs shown here are examples of Kleinhempel's clear mastery of both rug design and that of the contemporary ideals of the German decorative arts. Both rugs were produced in around 1909 and seem to straddle the main themes of post First World War Germany, namely that of the Bauhaus and Art Deco.
The first rug shown could well be seen as having a number of elements that went to make up the style that we term Art Deco, namely the decorative use of naturalistic themes along with a certain mechanical rigidity. It was this marriage of elements of the natural and the synthetic manufactured world that was to become a delicately achieved and sought after balance in at least a certain amount of Art Deco decoration.
Illustration: Gertrud Kleinhempel. Hand tufted rug design, c1909.
The second rug shown could well have been a woven example produced by the Bauhaus nearly twenty years after Kleinhempel produced this initial design. It has the uncompromising grid framework that places it well within the confines of the twentieth century and can be seen as a bold statement by the designer considering that it was produced within the first decade of the new century. This was a decade where Art Nouveau, though well past its prime, was still a dominant movement within many aspects of the European decorative arts world.
Kleinhempel is a name that should be remembered within the decorative and design parameters of Europe. She was one of the few women to have been accepted within what was still considered a man's profession. So much so that even by 1921 she was one of the first women in Germany to receive the title of Professor, and very probably one of the first women in Europe at the same time.
Gertrud Kleinhempel was one of a small band of determined women who refused to see any limitations within their chosen careers. These women helped to prize open a number of creative avenues that had been permanently denied to generations of capable and talented women. Many of these pioneering women are now unfortunately largely forgotten. However, it could be said that they were an important part of the history of the movement that saw the expansion of the potential horizons of young women in their millions. A process that was to slowly take place over much of the twentieth century. Many would say that that process is still far from complete.
Further reading links:
The German Werkbund: The Politics of Reform in the Applied Arts
Twentieth-Century Design (Oxford History of Art)
Imperial Culture in Germany, 1871 - 1918 (European Studies)
The German Werkbund: The Politics of Reform in the Applied Arts
Before the Bauhaus: Architecture, Politics, and the German State, 1890-1920 (Modern Architecture and Cultural Identity)
Bauhaus: 1919-1933 (Midsize)
Bauhaus (Temporis)
