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Stölzl, Gunta
(b Munich, 5 March 1897; d Zurich, 22 April 1983). German weaver and teacher. She studied at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Munich (1914–16) and completed her training at the Bauhaus in Weimar (1919–23), where she attended courses given by Johannes Itten and Paul Klee. Her early pictorial tapestries and knotted carpets have rhythms created by contrasts of form and of light and dark, which clearly show Itten’s influence. From 1923 she produced abstract works, especially wall hangings and blankets, which in their bold patterning and colour reflect Klee’s lessons on form. In 1925 Stölzl was appointed craft master in the weaving workshop at the Bauhaus in Dessau. She directed the students’ practical and theoretical instruction and worked out a systematic method of training. From 1927 until she resigned in 1931 she was technical and artistic director of the workshop, the only female master. During this period she managed to free weaving from its craft status, applying to it the vocabulary of form and colour used in modern art. She also moved weaving in the direction of industrial design and experimented with such materials as cellophane. Although designing for industry, Stölzl did not renounce weaving as a form of free artistic expression. An excellent example of this is Slit Tapestry Red-Green (cotton, wool, silk and linen, slit tapestry technique, 1.1*1.5 m, c. 1927–8; Berlin, Bauhaus-Archv). From 1928 she stressed the need for practical materials. In this she was following the development of the Bauhaus in her work, as she had done since 1919. In 1931 Stölzl was a founder-member of the hand-weaving mill S. P. H. Stoffe in Zurich, which produced furnishing fabrics and collections of patterns for dress fabrics. From 1937 to 1967 she had her own workshop in Zurich, and from 1950 she returned to weaving tapestries. These were characteristically decorative, often with brightly coloured geometric patterns.
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