Damast
Wall Hanging
1931 (made)
1931 (made)
| Artist/Maker | |
| Place of origin |
This wall hanging was woven by Gunta Stölzl (1897-1983), a talented student of the Weimar Bauhaus, an institution founded by Walter Gropius (1883-1969) to train architects, artists and industrial designers. In 1921 she entered the Weaving Workshop (the only workshop composed entirely of female students) and had to learn for herself the possibilities offered by the loom and her materials.
This hanging was made in the years following her formal appointment as technical director of the Weaving Workshop in Dessau in summer 1925, on a small-scale, hand-operated jacquard loom. This type of loom enabled weavers to produce geometric patterns with precisely defined borders.
The weave is complex, using twill and damask structures. Its pattern does not repeat, and in its format follows abstract art of the period. An underlying graphic design is visible through the arrangement of colourful horizontal stripes, an effect similar to the artworks of the contemporary artists Wassily Kandinsky and Carl Buccheister. This similarity is not surprising as the Bauhaus aimed to unite architecture and the fine and applied arts, and Gunta Stölzl had begun her studies alongside artists such as Johannes Itten and Georg Muche.
This hanging was made in the years following her formal appointment as technical director of the Weaving Workshop in Dessau in summer 1925, on a small-scale, hand-operated jacquard loom. This type of loom enabled weavers to produce geometric patterns with precisely defined borders.
The weave is complex, using twill and damask structures. Its pattern does not repeat, and in its format follows abstract art of the period. An underlying graphic design is visible through the arrangement of colourful horizontal stripes, an effect similar to the artworks of the contemporary artists Wassily Kandinsky and Carl Buccheister. This similarity is not surprising as the Bauhaus aimed to unite architecture and the fine and applied arts, and Gunta Stölzl had begun her studies alongside artists such as Johannes Itten and Georg Muche.
Object details
| Categories | |
| Object type | |
| Title | Damast (assigned by artist) |
| Materials and techniques | Jacquard-woven silk and cotton |
| Brief description | Wall hanging of Jacquard-woven silk and cotton, designed and woven on a hand-loom by Gunta Stölzl, Germany, 1931 |
| Physical description | Wall hanging of Jacquard-woven silk and cotton. With an abstract geometric design of circles, triangles, rectangles and squares arranged on horizontal bands of colours including pink, red, blue, yellow, orange and other colour mixtures created by contrast of one weft colour and red warp threads. The weave is complex using twill and damask weaving, reversing the direction of the twill to give contrasting effect across the weft. There is a dark red fringe at each end which is formed of the warp threads loosely twisted. The fabric is hemmed at both selvedges, There is no repeat. |
| Dimensions |
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| Production type | Unique |
| Object history | Purchased by the museum directly from Stölzl See KGS-09165 in Museum of Design Zurich, for comparable hanging by Stölzl's colleague Heinrich Otto Hürlimann. |
| Production | Woven by Stölzl in 1931 when she was head of the weaving workshops at the Dessau Bauhaus. |
| Subject depicted | |
| Summary | This wall hanging was woven by Gunta Stölzl (1897-1983), a talented student of the Weimar Bauhaus, an institution founded by Walter Gropius (1883-1969) to train architects, artists and industrial designers. In 1921 she entered the Weaving Workshop (the only workshop composed entirely of female students) and had to learn for herself the possibilities offered by the loom and her materials. This hanging was made in the years following her formal appointment as technical director of the Weaving Workshop in Dessau in summer 1925, on a small-scale, hand-operated jacquard loom. This type of loom enabled weavers to produce geometric patterns with precisely defined borders. The weave is complex, using twill and damask structures. Its pattern does not repeat, and in its format follows abstract art of the period. An underlying graphic design is visible through the arrangement of colourful horizontal stripes, an effect similar to the artworks of the contemporary artists Wassily Kandinsky and Carl Buccheister. This similarity is not surprising as the Bauhaus aimed to unite architecture and the fine and applied arts, and Gunta Stölzl had begun her studies alongside artists such as Johannes Itten and Georg Muche. |
| Collection | |
| Accession number | CIRC.709-1967 |
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| Record created | March 31, 2006 |
| Record URL |
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