Marguerite Wildenhain

Early life Wildenhain was born on October 11, 1896, in Lyon, France, to a British mother, Rose Calmann and a German father, Théodore Friedlaender, who was a silk merchant. Her brother was the Israeli typographer Henri Friedlaender. She received a primary education first in Germany, then in Yorkshire, England. At the start of World War I, her family moved to Germany where she completed secondary school.

Beginning in 1914, she studied sculpture at the Berlin University of the Arts, then worked as a decorator of porcelain ware at a factory in Rudolstadt. It was at that factory where her passion for the potter's wheel ignited. When she was not working at the factory, she explored the countryside. Shortly after World War I, while in Weimar for a weekend, she happened upon the posted proclamation by architect Walter Gropius about the founding of the Bauhaus school in 1919: ""a new guild of craftsmen without the class distinctions which raise an arrogant barrier between craftsmen and artists". Then and there, as she recalled in her autobiography, she decided to become one of the first students to enroll. Wildenhain attended Bauhaus in Dornburg from 1919 to 1925.

Bauhaus and after, 1919–1940 During her time at Bauhaus, Wildenhain studied alongside painters Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky and she worked closely with sculptor Gerhard Marcks (her Formmeister or Form Master) and potter Max Krehan (her Lehrmeister or Crafts Master).

In 1926, she left the school and moved to Halle-Saale, Germany, where she was appointed head of the ceramics workshop at the Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design. Many of her students went on to become successful professional ceramicists, and credit Wildenhain with monumental growth in their artistic careers.

1952 Seminar at Black Mountain College

Wildenhain was the featured lecturer and demonstrator at the Pottery seminar at Black Mountain College in 1952 that influenced many younger potters who attended.

Later years and death, 1952–1985

In the years that followed, as Marguerite Wildenhain's artistic stature grew, she continued to operate her own summer school, accepting twenty or more students each year. She also published three books (Pottery: Form and Expression; The Invisible Core: A Potter's Life and Thoughts; and That We Look and See: An Admirer Looks at the Indians), lectured at schools throughout the U.S., and took solo expeditions to South and Central America, Europe, and the Middle East.

She died at age 88 on February 24, 1985, in Guerneville, California. Shortly after Stewards took on the responsibility of keeping this State Park open, Pond Farm was designated a "National Treasure" by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and with this status, plans are moving forward to restore and preserve the studio and home. Ultimately Pond Farm will be accessible for public use in some appropriate form, yet to be determined.

Iconography Charles Crodel: Die Töpferin Marguerite Friedlaender, Berliner Sezession, 64. Ausstellung: Künstler unter sich. Malerei. Plastik. April / März 1931, Nr. 9 (Veröffentlichungen des Kunstdienstes Nr. 57)

Writings Pottery, Form and Expression (New York, 1962) The Invisible Core: A Potter's Life and Thoughts (New York, 1973) ...that We Look and See: An Admirer Looks at the Indians (Decorah, IA, 1979) R. Kath, ed.: The Letters of Gerhard Marcks and Marguerite Wildenhain, 1970–1981: A Mingling of Souls. (Ames, IA, 1991). D.L. Schwarz, ed.: Marguerite Letters to Franz Wildenhain (Decorah, IA, 2005).