Collection: Marianne Brandt

Marianne Brandt (1 October 1893 – 18 June 1983), German painter, sculptor, photographer and designer who studied at the Bauhaus school and became head of the metal workshop in 1928. Today, Brandt's designs for household objects are considered the harbinger of modern industrial design. She trained as a painter before joining the Weimar Bauhaus in 1923. There she became a student of Hungarian modernist theorist and designer László Moholy-Nagy in the metal workshop. Brandt's designs for metal ashtrays, tea and coffee services, lamps and other household objects are now recognized as among the best of the Weimar and Dessau Bauhaus.

Brandt is also remembered as a pioneering photographer. She created experimental still-life compositions, but it is her series of self-portraits which are particularly striking. These often represent her as a strong and independent 'New Woman of the Bauhaus'; other examples show her face and body distorted across the curved and mirrored surfaces of metal balls, creating a blended image of herself and her primary medium at the Bauhaus.