Karla Grosch

Karla Grosch (June 1, 1904 – May 8, 1933) was a German gymnastics teacher and dancer.

Life

Grosch was born in 1904 in Weimar. She was the daughter of wealthy Weimar lamp manufacturer and city councilor Rudolf Grosch.

In 1921 she attended the newly founded dance school of Gret Palucca in Dresden. Around 1923, she completed an apprenticeship as a wood sculptor in Weimar. In 1928 she joined Gunta Stölzl as the second female teacher at the Bauhaus in Dessau, where she worked as a gymnastics instructor for the female Bauhaus students. The introduction of physical education was initiated by the new Bauhaus director Hannes Meyer. She also performed as a dancer in the stage class under Oskar Schlemmer. Her performances in 1929, such as Metalltanz and Glastanz (Metal or Glass Dance), were documented by iconic photos taken by T. Lux Feininger and Robert Binnemann. She appears in many Bauhaus photographs, including a 1930 press photo from the magazine Die Woche, where she was portrayed as the "typical Bauhaus girl".

In the spring of 1933 she emigrated with her Austrian fiancé Franz Aichinger to Mandatory Palestine. He had studied architecture at the Bauhaus under Hannes Meyer and Mies van der Rohe.

Shortly after her arrival, she died in Tel Aviv in a bathing accident. Grosch was pregnant at the time.

The family grave in the Historical Cemetery in Weimar does not mention her name on the main gravestone, but it appears on an inscription directly below it. The inscription was commissioned by her sister Paula Grosch (1903–1993) in the 1930s.

Literature Seraina Graf: Karla Grosch – Eine Spurensuche. In: Zwitscher-Maschine. Journal on Paul Klee, 2018, issue 5, pp. 17–46. Patrick Rössler, Elizabeth Otto: Frauen am Bauhaus. Wegweisende Künstlerinnen der Moderne. Knesebeck, Munich 2019, pp. 121–126. .