Marguerite Friedlaender Wildenhain

Marguerite Wildenhain (French-American, 1896-1985) studied ceramics at the Bauhaus in Germany, one of the best-known design schools of the early 20th century. After five years she was considered a master potter and embarked on a career as both a teacher and designer for dinnerware. When the Nazi party came to power in Germany in 1933, she was forced to stop teaching, and being of Jewish ancestry, she chose to leave the country and moved to Holland where she opened a pottery studio with her husband. In 1940, with the impacts of WWII looming ever closer, she left Europe and emigrated to the United States. She began teaching at different arts and design institutions and in 1942 ended up near Guerneville, California, the place she would call home for the rest of her life. Working with like-minded owners of a large ranch named Pond Farm, they and a group of artists developed an artist colony and pottery studio. By 1960, she was the only remaining original artist working there, but she kept up the summer courses and built an institution where potters from all over came to learn from her and each other. One of those was Dean Schwarz, an Iowa potter from Decorah who was the focus of a previous social media post. Wildenhain used her experience at the Bauhaus to inform her style of teaching, which focused on technical training and understanding of the ceramic medium.