Alma Siedhoff-Buscher (4 January 1899 – 25 September 1944), born Alma Buscher, was a German designer. She trained at the

Reimann School The Reimann School of Art and Design was a private art school which was founded in Berlin in 1902 by Albert Reimann, and re-established in Regency Street, Pimlico, London in January 1937 after persecution by the Nazis. It was the first commercia ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

, the ''Unterrichtsanstalt des Kunstgewerbemuseums Berlin'' and the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...

Life and work

Alma Buscher was born on 4 January 1899 in

Kreuztal Kreuztal is a town in the Siegen-Wittgenstein district, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Geography Location Kreuztal is a town in the low mountains of the northern Siegerland and lies at the western edge of the Rothaargebirge about 10 k ...

in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.Bauhaus100. Alma Siedhoff-Buscher
. Retrieved 24 November 2018 From 1917 she studied at the Reimann School in Berlin, and afterwards at the ''Unterrichtsanstalt des Kunstgewerbemuseums Berlin'', a former school of applied arts that was a department of the Berlin Museum of Decorative Arts (Kunstgewerbemuseum Berlin).Müller, Ulrike (2007). ''Die klugen Frauen von Weimar: Regentinnen, Salondamen, Schriftstellerinnen und Künstlerinnen''. München: Elisabeth Sandmann Verlag In 1922 Buscher began studying at the Bauhaus in

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state of Thuringia, Germany. It is located in Central Germany between Erfurt in the west and Jena in the east, approximately southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together with the neighbouri ...

and like all students initially attended the preliminary course run by

Johannes Itten Johannes Itten (11 November 1888 – 25 March 1967) was a Swiss expressionist painter, designer, teacher, writer and theorist associated with the Bauhaus (''Staatliches Bauhaus'') school. Together with German-American painter Lyonel Feininger ...

and classes by

Paul Klee Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...

and

Wassily Kandinsky Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky (; rus, Василий Васильевич Кандинский, Vasiliy Vasilyevich Kandinskiy, vɐˈsʲilʲɪj vɐˈsʲilʲjɪvʲɪtɕ kɐnʲˈdʲinskʲɪj; – 13 December 1944) was a Russian painter a ...

. She was subsequently accepted into the Weaving Workshop, but in 1923, with the support of

Georg Muche Georg Muche (8 May 1895 – 26 March 1987) was a German painter, printmaker, architect, author, and teacher. Early life and education Georg Muche was born on 8 May 1895 in Querfurt, in the Prussian Province of Saxony, and grew up in the Rhön ...

and

Josef Hartwig Josef Hartwig (1880–1956) was a Bauhaus sculptor and Nazi Party member best known for his 1923 minimalist chess set design, known as in German, or Bauhaus chess in English. Personal life Josef Hartwig was born on 19 March 1880 in Munich. Begi ...

, she switched to the Wood Sculpture Workshop. As part of the first exhibition of Bauhaus work in 1923, she designed furniture for the children's room in the

Haus am Horn The Haus am Horn is a domestic house in Weimar, Germany, designed by Georg Muche. It was built for the Bauhaus ''Werkschau'' (English: ''Work show'') exhibition which ran from July to September 1923. It was the first building based on Bauhaus des ...

in Weimar, as well as a puppet theater and children's toys."Revolt, They Said". www.andreageyer.info.
Retrieved 30 July 2017. The reviews of the Haus am Horn were mixed, but the most popular items were the toys and multi-functional toy cupboard in the children's room designed by Siedhoff-Buscher. This displeased the director of the Bauhaus

Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-American architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in conne ...

, as he thought that the school being well known for designing products for children would lessen its reputation as an academic institution. Gropius wasn't very keen on a woman being in the Wood Sculpture Workshop in any case, as he was of the opinion that women couldn't deal with three-dimensional design and were better working with two-dimensional patterns in the Weaving Workshop.Radelhof, Susanne (writer, director) (2019
Bauhausfrauen. Reportage & Dokumentation
Produced by Koberstein Film for MDR. YouTube (29:30 min). Retrieved 10 May 2019 Most of the furniture exhibited in the Haus am Horn no longer exists, but copy of toy cupboard made at the same time as the exhibition is in the collection of the Bauhaus Museum Weimar. A copy of it was made for the 2019 restoration of the house.Helbing, Michael (15 January 2019
Weimar startet Bauhaus-Jubiläum im „Haus Am Horn“
in

Thüringer Allgemeine ''Thüringer Allgemeine'' (TA) is a German newspaper with its head office in Erfurt Erfurt () is the capital and largest city in the Central German state of Thuringia. It is located in the wide valley of the Gera river (progression: ), in ...

. Retrieved 2 May 2019 In 1924, while Buscher was still a student, the Zeiss Kindergarten in

Jena Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a popu ...

was fitted out with furniture she designed. In the same year her furniture designs and toys were shown at a conference held in Jena for kindergarten teachers, youth leaders and day-care providers and also at the ''Youth Welfare in Thuringia'' exhibition held in Weimar. She and her partner, the actor and dancer :de:Werner Siedhoff (1899-1976), moved to

Dessau Dessau is a town and former municipality in Germany at the confluence of the rivers Mulde and Elbe, in the '' Bundesland'' (Federal State) of Saxony-Anhalt. Since 1 July 2007, it has been part of the newly created municipality of Dessau-Roßlau ...

in 1925 with the Bauhaus. They married in 1926. She had two children with Siedhoff; the actor :de:Joost Siedhoff, born 1926 and a daughter, Lore, born in 1928. Although Werner Siedhoff was not a Bauhaus student, he took part in some of the productions of Oskar Schlemmer's Stagecraft Workshop. Siedhoff-Buscher graduated in 1927 and the family remained in Dessau until 1928. After that, because of her husband's acting work, they moved a number of times. After 1927, she became a full-time wife and mother and never commercially produced any further toys or furniture, although she made furniture for the family home. Siedhoff-Buscher was killed in a

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

air raid in Buchschlag near

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

on 25 September 1944.

Legacy

Two of her most well known works were ''Kleine Schiffbauspiel'' ("Little ship-building game") which she made in 1923, consisting of 32 coloured wooden pieces, and ''Große Schiffbauspiel'' made in 1924, which has 39 pieces. She also created the ''Wurfpuppen'' (bendy string dolls, with wooden heads) in 1923, and, in 1927, crane and sailing boat cut out kits, which were originally published by Otto Maier-Verlag in Ravensburg. The ship building games and the cut out kits became available again in 1977. A solo exhibition of her work, ''Alma Siedhoff-Buscher: Eine neue Welt für Kinder'' (Alma Siehoff-Buscher: a new world for children) was shown at the

Bauhaus Museum, Weimar The Bauhaus Museum Weimar is a museum dedicated to the Bauhaus design movement located in Weimar, Germany. It presents the Weimar collections of the State Bauhaus, which was founded in the town in 1919. The museum is a project of the Klassik S ...

in 2004-2005 and at the Bauhaus Archive, Berlin in 2006. The 1923 ''Haus am Horn'', which presented a revolutionary prototype for modern living and for which Siedhoff-Buscher designed furniture, has been part of the World Heritage Site

Bauhaus and its Sites in Weimar, Dessau and Bernau Bauhaus and its Sites in Weimar, Dessau and Bernau is a World Heritage Site in Germany, comprising six separate sites which are associated with the Bauhaus art school. It was designated in 1996 with four initial sites, and in 2017 two further si ...

since 1996. In 2018 it underwent a major restoration in preparation for the 2019 celebrations of the Bauhaus centenary.

Film

Lotte Brendel, the fictional lead character in the German television film , first broadcast on ARD in February 2019, is loosely based on Siedhoff-Buscher.Teetz, Kristian (13 February 2019
„Lotte am Bauhaus“ – eine müde Moderne
in Hannoversche Allgemeine. Retrieved 21 February 2019

References

External links

Bauhaus100. Alma Siedhoff-Buscher
. {{DEFAULTSORT:Siedhoff Buscher, Alma 1899 births 1944 deaths Artists from North Rhine-Westphalia 20th-century German artists 20th-century German women artists Bauhaus alumni Reimann School (Berlin) alumni Toy designers Furniture designers Deaths by airstrike during World War II People from Kreuztal German civilians killed in World War II