Max Krehan (July 11, 1875 – October 16, 1925) was a German Master Potter in

Dornburg Dornburg is a town in the Saale-Holzland district, in Thuringia, Germany. It sits atop a small hill of 400 ft above the Saale. Since 1 December 2008, it is part of the town Dornburg-Camburg. History Within the German Empire (1871–1918), ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, who, in 1920, was appointed the ''Lehrmeister'' (Crafts Master) for the pottery workshop at 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 ...

school 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 ...

Background

Krehan was the last in a long line of potters in a region of eastern Germany called

Thuringia Thuringia (; german: Thüringen ), officially the Free State of Thuringia ( ), is a state of central Germany, covering , the sixth smallest of the sixteen German states. It has a population of about 2.1 million. Erfurt is the capital and larg ...

. His family had merged with the Wentzel family of Master Potters (or ''Töpfermeisters''), when his great-grandfather, Johann Friedrich Krehan, married a Wentzel daughter in 1803. In 1900, having achieved the standing of Master Potter, Max Krehan took over the Krehan Pottery in Dornburg from his father, and thereafter worked with his brother, Karl Krehan, a Journeyman.

Weimar Bauhaus

In 1919, when the now-famous Bauhaus school of art and design began in nearby Weimar, its founder

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 ...

established a workshop in production pottery, with the intention that it would be taught at a factory in Weimar. In 1920, when these arrangements foundered, Gropius invited Max Krehan to move to Weimar and join the Bauhaus staff. Krehan refused to leave his Dornburg pottery, but he did agree to work with students at that location (about fifteen miles from Weimar). As a result, the ceramics workshop of the ''Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar'' (State Bauhaus of Weimar) was set up as an annex in Dornburg, in the abandoned horse stables of the Grand-Duke of Sachsen-Weimar. Its two-man team of teachers were sculptor

Gerhard Marcks Gerhard Marcks (18 February 1889 – 13 November 1981) was a German artist, known primarily as a sculptor, but who is also known for his drawings, woodcuts, lithographs and ceramics. Early life Marcks was born in Berlin, where, at the age of 18, ...

(as ''Formmeister'' or Form Master) and Krehan (as ''Lehrmeister'' or Crafts Master). Among the students there that year were

Marguerite Wildenhain Marguerite Wildenhain, née Marguerite Friedlaender and alternative spelling ''Friedländer'' (October 11, 1896 – February 24, 1985), was an American Bauhaus-trained ceramic artist, educator and author. After immigrating to the United States in ...

, Gertrud Coja, Lydia Foucar, Johannes Driesch, Theodor Bogler and

Otto Lindig Otto Lindig (4 January 1895, in Pößneck – 4 July 1966, in Wiesbaden) was a German master potter who was a student and later a workshop manager at the famous Bauhaus art school in Weimar, Germany. Background Lindig was born in Pößneck, Ger ...

. Only five years later, Max Krehan died young and unexpectedly, at age 50. The Weimar Bauhaus had closed down on April 1 of the same year.

Diary

Shortly before her death, Wildenhain (Krehan's student) gave to one of her students and close associates, American potter

Dean Schwarz Dean Lester Schwarz (born 1938) is an American ceramic artist, painter, historian, writer, publisher, and teacher. He was also the co-founder of the South Bear School (1970–present) by which he imparted to students a tradition of functional stud ...

, a small, handwritten German diary, with an inscription on the title page that reads ''Dem letzen Töpfere seines Stammes'' (To the Last Potter of His Lineage). Years later, when translated, the diary was found to consist of letter-like entries from Wildenhain to Krehan, written after his death, from October 1925 to May 1926. Its heartfelt, candid content shows that Krehan and she had been lovers. This was verified when, in 2007, with the consent of her family, an English translation of this same diary was published in a book about the Bauhaus pottery tradition, titled ''Marguerite Wildenhain and the Bauhaus'' (Schwarz 2007, pp. 136-168).

Sources

*Dean and Geraldine Schwarz, eds., ''Marguerite Wildenhain and the Bauhaus: An Eyewitness Anthology''. Decorah, Iowa: South Bear Press, 2007. . *Dean and Geraldine Schwarz, ''Centering Bauhaus Clay: A Potter's Perspective''. Decorah, Iowa: South Bear Press, 2009. .

Background

Weimar Bauhaus

Diary

Sources

See also