Lore Ribbentrop-Leudesdorff 1961 German Expressionist Etching on Wove Paper

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Lore Ribbentrop-Leudesdorff (1902-1986) a Bauhaus educated German expressionist artist. Her art is reminiscent of Paul Klee. As you read further … Read more Lore Ribbentrop-Leudesdorff (1902-1986) a Bauhaus educated German expressionist artist. Her art is reminiscent of Paul Klee. As you read further you will learn that she was blind when she executed this etching in 1961.
German expressionist Etching on woven paper signed by the artist in pencil circa 1961 in original matte and black frame -wired and ready to hang.
Beyond the matte there is the letter “M” hand written in pencil toward the middle of the paper beneath the art image. There is a pressed impression in the paper bordering the art image on heavy paper.
Measurements in frame are 25”H x 19”W x .8”D.
Provenance:
I purchased this etching from the former owner, Kathleen J. Pottick, Ph.D. She bought this etching at an estate sale in Berkeley, California when she was on sabbatical there in 1996-1997. Her son said that it was done by an artist friend of hers in Germany, Lore Ribbentrop-Leudesdorff. It is signed by the artist in pencil and dated 1961.
Artist Biography:
Lore Ribbentrop-Leudesdorff was a significant figure in the early 20th century, known for her artistic talents, particularly in the field of architecture and interior design. She was a student at the Bauhaus school, a renowned institution that influenced the development of modern design. Her life and work have been explored in scholarly publications, like Susanne Schilling's Magister thesis, "Die Bauhausschülerin Lore Leudesdorff. Leben und Werk,". Additionally, she is featured in "Frauen am Bauhaus," a book exploring the contributions of women to the Bauhaus movement.
Lore Ribbentrop-Leudesdorffs’ biography highlights her artistic journey and her connection to the Bauhaus school.
In 1921 she applied in vain to the Technical University of Darmstadt. She was admitted to the Staatliche Bauhaus Weimar and studied there from the winter semester of 1921, first in the preliminary course with Paul Klee and Johannes Itten and finally until 1923 in the weaving ware with Georg Muche. She did not complete her studies at the Bauhaus.
From 1925 she was the assistant and until 1927 at the same time life partner of Walther Ruttmann, a cameraman, director and pioneer of abstract experimental film. She worked on several films as an assistant director, including the experimental short films "Opus III" and "Opus IV" as well as about 10 semi-abstract advertising films for Julius Pinschewer. She also worked on the so-called "Cloud Background Film", an abstract animation for Erwin Piscator's "Traumspiel" production in Berlin, as well as as a production designer on Rein Lotte's animated film "The Adventures of Prince Achmed". After her separation from Ruttmann, she was briefly in a relationship with Jorge Fulda, owner of a Berlin photo studio. Her son René emerged from this relationship in 1928. Shortly afterwards, she married the fabric wholesaler Martin Wiener. The marriage lasted only four years.
From 1932 to 1943, Leudesdorff operated her own studio in Berlin-Schöneberg for textile print designs. Her designs for mass-produced textiles were in great demand and she received orders for the textile industry in Germany and abroad. Unfortunately, their designs from this time, which no longer had much in common with the formal language of the Bauhaus, were lost in the war.
In 1939 she married the engineer Fritz Ribbentrop. From 1941 she worked part-time at the Berlin bookstore Gsellius and at the same time as a DRK nurse assistant in Berlin hospitals. In 1943 she moved to Falkenstein in the Vogtland and only returned to Berlin after the end of the war in 1946, where she worked again as a textile designer from 1948.
Leudesdorff, whose eyes were captured in 1926 by Umbo in a photograph for eternity, went blind in 1949 as a result of a venitis, which she had contracted in 1943 in a hospital quarantined for scarlet fever. She had to stop working as a designer, change her life, but continued to carry out freelance artistic activities. At first she concentrated on the cold needle etching already learned at the Bauhaus, but as Gropius wrote in a letter in 1960, she also ventured into the three-dimensional and made, among other things, two bronze plates for the Berlin war hospital.
Lore Leudesdorff died on 26. August 1986 in Berlin (West). See less