Margaretha Reichardt

The Angermuseum Erfurt holds her work in its collection, . In 2019 it held the exhibition Vier "Bauhausmädels": Gertrud Arndt, Marianne Brandt, Margarete Heymann, Margaretha Reichardt, 23 March–16 June 2019.

Clothing made from Margaretha Reichardt's textiles and a carpet design were shown in the Bauhaus: Art as Life (3 May-12 August 2012), exhibition at the Barbican Art Gallery in London.

Examples of Reichardt's Bauhaus work are held by the New York Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and were included in the exhibition Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity, November 8, 2009 – January 25, 2010.

Since 1992 the Margaretha Reichardt Haus has been managed by the Angermuseum Erfurt, the city's main art gallery. It can be visited by appointment and tours are offered which include a demonstration of how the looms work.

After Margaretha Reichardt's death, efforts began to keep her home and workshop as a museum and memorial site. The home, workshop and contents, including the looms, and the garden were given the status of a protected monument in 1987 and it became an official museum of the city of Erfurt in 1989. The building was restored in 1990. The museum is called the Margaretha Reichardt Haus.

Margaretha Reichardt died unexpectedly at her home in Erfurt-Bischleben on 25 May 1984, aged 77. She continued to manage her workshop until her death.

On 2 December 1976 Margaretha was one of 18 former 'Bauhäuslern' (former staff and students of the Bauhaus) who attended the official reopening of the Bauhaus building in Dessau, after it had been restored by the East German government.

Reichardt hand wove one of three tapestries for the restored St. Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin in 1963. 'It depicts a stylisation of a city with the names of the apostles inscribed on foundation stones. God is represented by the Tree of Life and a lamb features as a symbol of Christ'.

In 1953 there was political unrest in East Germany, leading to a people's uprising, during which Soviet troops were brought into East Berlin, and many civilians were killed. In that year Reichardt was offered several posts which would have given her the opportunity to move to West Germany. The Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg (Hamburg University of Fine Arts), and universities in Kassel and Munich all offered her lectureships, but she did not accept them.

In 1952 Reichardt was admitted to the Verband Bildender Künstler der DDR (VBK) [de] (the artists' association of the German Democratic Republic).

She was also awarded an honorary golden diploma at the 1951 Milan Triennial IX for a handwoven tapestry she exhibited.

In 1946 she taught for a year in the textile department of the Meisterschule für Handwerk und Handwertskunst, in Erfurt, a school for applied arts, which succeeded the Kunstgewerbeschule which she had attended as a young woman and was in the same building.

She gained her Master Weaver's qualification and in 1942 the Thüringen Handwerkskammer (Thuringia Chamber of Skilled Crafts) gave her the authority to teach apprentices.

In 1939 together with Hans, Margaretha built a house and workshop in Bischleben, an outer suburb of Erfurt, about 7 km from the city centre. Margaretha lived and worked there for the rest of her life, producing wall hangings and carpets, and textiles for clothing, curtains and furniture.

The house was built in 1939. The architectural plans were drawn up by Reichardt's former Bauhaus contemporary Konrad Püschel. It does not look like a typical flat roofed Bauhaus building, but more like a traditional tiled roof house of its period. On display in the Margaretha Reichardt Haus is the workshop on the lower ground floor with six original wooden hand looms, two of which came from the Bauhaus weaving workshop in Dessau. Part of Reichardt's living quarters can also be visited. The rooms are as they were when she was alive, and have examples of her carpets and wall hangings, as well as some original Bauhaus furniture, including a Marcel Breuer tubular steel chair with Reichardt's eisengarn fabric. A Steckpuppe model can also be seen. There is also a collection of textiles, and clothing produced from the textiles, which were made at the workshop.

At the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques dans la Vie Moderne (International Exposition of Art and Technology in Modern Life) in 1937 in Paris, she was awarded an honorary diploma.

Handweberei Grete Reichardt was the business name of Margaretha Reichardt's weaving workshop. When she was married and working with her husband, Hans Wagner, from 1936 until 1952, it was called Handweberei Wagner-Reichardt. The workshop had up to five apprentices at any one time, and in total Reichardt trained over 50 apprentices during her lifetime.

During her lifetime, her work was shown in over 20 personal exhibitions, and there have been a number of posthumous exhibitions. In addition to these, from 1936 to 1975 (apart from during World War II) her work was exhibited at the handcrafts exhibitions which took place at the Grassi Museum during the annual Leipzig Trade Fair (Leipziger Messe). The Grassi Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Leipzig (Leipzig Museum of Applied Arts) holds her work in its permanent collection.

In 1933 she return to Erfurt. She was able to obtain a number of looms and other equipment that came from the recently closed Bauhaus weaving workshop and set up her own workshop in Severihof, where her family lived.

In 1932 she made a one-year work and study trip to the Netherlands. While there she studied typography with the designer Piet Zwart and developed and became the director of a weaving workshop in The Hague.

From 1930 until the summer of 1931 Reichardt was a freelance workshop master at the Bauhaus weaving workshop. In the spring of 1931, Reichardt, along with Herbert von Arend (1910-2001) and Ilse Voigt (1905-1990), was one of the ringleaders in a revolt against the pedagogic leadership of the head of the weaving workshop, Gunta Stölzl. This, and political hostilities against Stölzl (she married a Jewish student, Arieh Sharon), led to Stölzl being asked to resign. Reichardt, von Arend and Voigt were temporarily expelled.

Reichardt's improved version of eisengarn was also used as a covering for aeroplane seats in the 1930s. She also helped develop types of cloth with soundproofing and light reflecting qualities while she was at the Bauhaus.

During her time at the Bauhaus she spent the winter semester between 1929 and 1930 working as an itinerant teacher in Königsberg, East Prussia. The city was destroyed during World War II and its aftermath.

The student Margaretha Reichardt's textiles were used in the furnishings of the Bundesschule des Allgemeinen Deutschen Gewerkschaftsbundes (ADGB), (ADGB Trade Union School) built between 1928 and 1930, in Bernau bei Berlin. Hannes Meyer and Hans Wittwer were the architects. The school is now part of the Bauhaus World Heritage Site.

Her work was also used in the cafe of the Altes Theater(de) in Dessau, which was rebuilt in 1927 following a fire in an earlier building. The new building was destroyed during World War II bombing.

From 1926 to 1931, Reichardt was a student at the Bauhaus design school in Dessau, Germany. The first semester consisted of a preliminary course run by Josef Albers and László Moholy-Nagy. Following that she was educated in the Bauhaus weaving workshop. She also attend classes by Paul Klee, Joost Schmidt and Wassily Kandinsky. She passed the Bauhaus journeyman's exam in 1929, and in 1931 was awarded her Bauhaus Diploma, receiving Bauhaus Diploma number 54.

In 1926, her first year at the Bauhaus, Margaretha undertook a preliminary course run by Josef Albers and László Moholy-Nagy. She designed two now well known wooden toys while in the class, which were later produced commercially by the Naef toy company in Switzerland.

In 1923, while at the Kunstgewerbeschule, she went on a class excursion to nearby Weimar to visit the very first Bauhaus exhibition, held at the Haus am Horn. She was very enthusiastic about the exhibition and it later inspired her to apply, in 1925, to the study at the school. She was matriculant number 83.

In 1921 Margaretha Reichardt was given special permission to begin training, at the young age of 14, at the Erfurt Kunstgewerbeschule, a school for applied arts. She left the school in 1925 as a qualified craftswoman.

From 1913 to 1921 she attended the Katholischen Bürgerschule (a catholic school) and the Mädchenlyzeums der Ursulinen (a school for girls run by Ursuline nuns) in Erfurt.

Margaretha Reichardt (6 March 1907 – 25 May 1984), also known as Grete Reichardt, was a textile artist, weaver, and graphic designer from Erfurt, Germany. She was one of the most important designers to emerge from the Bauhaus design school's weaving workshop in Dessau, Germany. She spent most of her adult life running her own independent weaving workshop in Erfurt, which was under Nazi rule and then later part of communist East Germany.

Margaretha Reichardt was born in Erfurt on 6 March 1907. Her father was a master tailor and the sexton of the Catholic Severikirche (St Severus' Church). The family lived in apartments in Severihof, a prominent building belonging to the church, overlooking Erfurt's catheral square. She was an only child.

She married Hans Wagner (1906-1981), in 1936 and sometimes used the surname Wagner-Reichardt after that. Hans ran a photographic studio with his brother called the Gebrüder Wagner (Wagner Brothers). Margaretha taught him to weave and they worked together in the weaving workshop. In 1939 Hans left on military service. The couple divorced in 1952. They had no children. After the divorce Hans ran his own separate weaving workshop in Erfurt-Hochheim.

Reichardt was taught by, and worked with, many famous Bauhaus names, notably Gunta Stölzl. She developed textile coverings for the tubular steel chairs of Marcel Breuer. Eisengarn, meaning "iron yarn" in English, is a very strong, durable, waxed cotton material. No iron is actually in the cloth. Fabric made from the yarn is shiny and highly tear-resistant. The material was originally developed in Germany in the mid-19th century and by 1875 was being manufactured in some quantity, however Margaretha Reichardt improved the quality while she was at the Bauhaus and it was used by Marcel Breuer on his tubular steel chairs.