Benita Koch-Otte

Benita Koch-Otte ( Benita Otte; 23 May 189226 April 1976) was a German weaver and textile designer who trained at the Bauhaus.

Life and work Benita Otte was born on 23 May 1892 in Stuttgart, Germany. Otte's father was a chemist.

After attending Lyceum in Krefeld, Otte taught drawing and physical education in Uerdingen. In 1920, she enrolled at the Bauhaus in Weimar where she studied in the studio's weaving workshop. She was later employed in the workshop, working closely with Gunta Stölzl. Otte left the Bauhaus in 1925.

Although she worked primarily as a weaver, Otte, on a number of occasions, produced work beyond the medium. Notable among this work is Otte's design for the kitchen of the 1923 Haus am Horn in Weimar, which inspired Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky's 1926 Frankfurt kitchen.

After leaving the Bauhaus, Otte served as head of the weaving workshop at the Kunstgewerbeschule Burg Giebichenstein, a vocational arts college in Halle, now the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design. In 1929 she reunited with the Czech photographer (1896–1934) who studied with Otte at the Bauhaus; Benita married Koch later that year. She worked at the foundation until her 1957 retirement.

Death and legacy Koch-Otte died on 26 April 1976 in Bielefeld, Germany. and Anni Albers, among others.

Benita Koch-Otte Street (Benita-Otte-Straße) in Erfurt, Germany is named after her.

Koch-Otte's work was included in the 2021 exhibition Women in Abstraction at the Centre Pompidou.