Ilse Fehling

Ilse Fehling was a German costume designer and sculptor associated with the Bauhaus and Nazi propaganda films.

Early life and education Ilse Fehling was born on April 25, 1896, in Danzig-Langfuhr, Germany. In 1919, Fehling enrolled at the Reimann School in Berlin, where she studied art and fashion design. While in Berlin, she additionally studied at the city's Kunstgewerbeschule. It was there that Fehling began to study sculpture.

In 1920, Fehling matriculated at the Bauhaus Weimar, where much of her work focused on theatre design. Additionally, she studied sculpture, painting, and theory of harmonization Out of her work at the school, Fehling's best known is the rotating round puppet stage she designed and later patented in her theater class with Lothal Schreyer. and continued this work after the 1933 rise of Nazism in Germany, working on propaganda films including Der Herrscher.

In 1940, Fehling began work at Tobis-Europa as the chief outfitter.

By 1946, Fehling lived in Rottack before returning to Munich in 1952 where she lived out the rest of her life. Fehling opened her own studio after settling in Munich, where she worked on sculptures, stage sets, and press drawings. Fehling did some additional work in Geneva, where her daughter was an international student. Her final design project was for the Cologne cinema "Die Lupe" in 1965, where she conceptualized the interior design.

Personal life and death In 1923, Fehling married Henry S. Witting. In 1928, she gave birth to a daughter, Gaby; she divorced Witting a year later. Fehling died on February 25, 1982.