Modern Print Monday: Munich's German Workshops (Deutsche Werkstätten GmbH)

Print by Josef Hillerbrand

for the Deutsche Werkstätten GmbH

Turn-of-the-last-century modernism was often about workshops where individual designer's names are lost. Following the lead of Austria's Wiener Werkstätte, the Deutsche Werkstätten were organized in Munich in 1898.

Print by Adelbert Niemeyer

It's difficult to find information about this workshop and the textile designers if one doesn't read German. Many records and objects were lost during World War II. To add to the confusion, Germany was home to several similarly named organizations. A second Deutsche Werkstätten is in business today in Hellerau.

Print by Richard Reimerschmid, 1908,

for the Deutscher werkbund in Munich,

another craft workshop.

Ruth Hildegard Geyer-Raack

The Munich workshops also produced textiles for

outside designers.

See a post about Geyer-Raack's print in the collection of the Cooper-Hewitt here:

http://www.cooperhewitt.org/2013/05/10/a-modern-flat-floral/

The Cooper-Hewitt Museum has a collection of works by other Munich workshop designers at this link:
https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/people/18046325/