Marianne Brandt was born in Chemnitz in Germany in 1893. She made a name for herself above all as a metal designer, but was also active as a sculptor and painter.
After studying at the Grand Ducal Saxon School of Fine Arts in Weimar, Marianne Brandt lived in Norway for a while with her husband Erik Brandt before attending the Bauhaus from 1923 to 1929. At the Bauhaus in Weimar, she took the preliminary course with Albers and Moholy-Nagy and classes with Klee and Kandinsky, and trained in the metal workshop.
After the Bauhaus moved to Dessau and following a short stay in Paris in France, Marianne Brandt was appointed acting head of the Bauhaus metal workshop in 1928/29 – while still a student. She received her Bauhaus diploma in 1929.
Until 1932, Marianne Brandt headed the design department of a metalware factory in Gotha. She was then unemployed until 1948 and devoted herself to painting during this time. She later taught at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts and, from 1951 to 1954, worked at the Institute for Industrial Design in Berlin. In 1954, Marianne Brandt returned to Chemnitz, where she devoted herself mainly to fine art and crafts. She died in Kirchberg, Saxony, in 1983.
Marianne Brandt was regarded as one of the greatest talents of the Bauhaus metal workshop. Many well-known designs date from her student years, including lights, ashtrays and teapots that can now be seen at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in the USA, and some of which are still produced according to the original designs.
