Otti Berger

Party at Otti Berger's. Berger, back row far right, with headdress. Digital image courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program.

Otti Berger (Otilija Ester Berger) was born on 4 October 1898 in present-day Zmajevac, Croatia. She was a student and later teacher at the Bauhaus, where she was a textile artist and weaver. She was murdered in 1944 at Auschwitz during the Holocaust.

The handle of stuff is of primary importance. A piece of stuff must be touched and felt; it has to be held in the hands. The beauty of a stuff is above all, known by its feel. The feel of stuff in the hands can be just as beautiful an experience as colour can be to the eye or sound to the ear.

— Otti Berger, "Stoffe im Raum", or "Fabric for the Home"

Early Life

Otti Berger was born on 4 October 1898 in present-day Zmajevac, Croatia. At the time of Berger’s birth, Zmajevac was part of the Baranya region of Austro-Hungary and was known as Vörösmart. Berger’s Jewish family was granted unrestricted residence and freedom in religion under the rule of Emperor Franz Joseph 1. Because of Vörösmart’s national transition from Austro-Hungarian to Yugoslavian in 1918, and later Croatian, Berger’s nationality was and still is often mistaken. Though a native Hungarian speaker, Berger was also fluent in German. Due to a previous illness, Berger suffered from partial hearing loss, which was said to have heightened or enhanced her sense of touch.

Career

Berger was born in Zmajevac in Austro-Hungarian Empire (present-day Croatia). She completed education at the Collegiate School for Girls in Vienna before enrolling in the Royal Academy of Arts and Crafts in Zagreb, now the Academy of Fine Arts, University of Zagreb. She continued her studies in Zagreb until 1926 before attending Bauhaus in Dessau, Germany. There, Berger studied under László Moholy-Nagy, Paul Klee, and Wassily Kandinsky, among others. Berger has been described as "one of the most talented students at the weaving workshop in Dessau."

Sample textile designed by Otti Berger

Sample textile book of 22 various designs by Berger using synthetic dyes and mercerized cotton.

A core member of the experimental approach to textiles at the Bauhaus, Berger experimented with methodology and materials during the course of her studies at the Bauhaus to eventually include plastic textiles intended for mass production. She applied for a patent for her textile designs which she called "Möbelstoff-Doppelgewebe" in 1932 and received it in 1934. She sold the rights to the Shriver Corporation. Along with Anni Albers and Gunta Stölzl, Berger pushed back against the understanding of textiles as a feminine craft and utilized rhetoric used in photography and painting to describe her work. During her time in Dessau, she also wrote a treatise on fabrics and the methodology of textile production, which stayed with Walter Gropius and was never published.

Berger became a deputy to designer Lilly Reich in the textile workshop at Bauhaus. She began to create her own curriculum, and acted as a mentor to younger Bauhaus students who carried on Bauhaus methods, including Paris-based weaver Zsuzsa Markos-Ney and Etel Fodor-Mittag, who became a hand weaver in South Africa. After spending a year teaching workshops under Lilly Reich, she opened up her own studio "otti berger atelier für textilien" in 1932. She went on to work with a number of firms and developed and designed a number of fabrics. She applied to patent three of her inventions and received patents for two of those. Berger is the only designer from Bauhaus who sought patents for her textiles.

Not allowed to work in Germany under Nazi rule because of her Jewish roots, Berger closed her company down in 1936. Berger fled to London, where attempts to emigrate to United States to work with her fiancee Ludwig Hilberseimer and other Bauhaus professors failed. She wrote to László Moholy-Nagy, Naum Gabo, Walter Gropius, and other friends trying to gain a teaching visa in 1937 but never acquired one. Berger was unable to find steady work in London, in part because she did not speak the language, but also because she had impaired hearing, and no social circle. Berger returned to Zmajevac in 1938 to help her family with her mother's poor health. From there, she was deported with her family to the Auschwitz concentration camp in April 1944, where she was murdered.

See also

• Anni Albers
• Friedl Dicker-Brandeis
• Margaretha Reichard
• Gunta Stölzl
• Ivana Tomljenović-Meller

External links

• Otti Berger entry at the Art Institute of Chicago
• Otti Berger entry at Bauhaus Online
• Artwork by Otti Berger at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Biography and works at Baunet
• Photograph "Party at Otti Berger's" at the Getty Center
• Otti Berger research and related links on Aviva