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 lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

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

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

school in

Weimar Weimar is a city in the state (Germany), German state of Thuringia, in Central Germany (cultural area), Central Germany between Erfurt to the west and Jena to the east, southwest of Leipzig, north of Nuremberg and west of Dresden. Together w ...

Background

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

Thuringia Thuringia (; officially the Free State of Thuringia, ) is one of Germany, Germany's 16 States of Germany, states. With 2.1 million people, it is 12th-largest by population, and with 16,171 square kilometers, it is 11th-largest in area. Er ...

. 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-born American architect and founder of the Bauhaus, Bauhaus School, who is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture. He was a founder of ...

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, also spelled ''Friedländer'' (October 11, 1896 – February 24, 1985), was an American Bauhaus-trained ceramic artist, educator and author. After immigrating to the United States in 1940, she ...

, Gertrud Coja, Lydia Foucar, Johannes Driesch, Theodor Bogler and Otto Lindig. 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, 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