Ruth Hollós

Marcel Breuer and his “Harem.” From left to right: Martha Erps, Katt Both, Ruth Hollós; photograph by Erich Consemüller, 1927

Born: August 3, 1904, Lissa, Germany (now Leszno, Poland)

Died: April 25, 1993, Cologne, Germany

Matriculated: 1924

Locations: Poland, Germany

Born in the borderlands of Prussia and Poland, Ruth Hollós believed she was destined for a career as a creative designer. In 1921, at just seventeen, she began studying at the Bremen School of Applied Arts, where she had just moved with her mother. Three years later, at the suggestion of Wilhelm Wagenfeld, she applied to the Bauhaus in Weimar and was accepted for the 1924–1925 winter semester. Hollós arrived at the school only to find that she would have to move with it to its new location in Dessau. After taking the preliminary course (Vorkurs) with Georg Muche and Josef Albers, she received a comprehensive education in weaving with Gunta Stölzl and was among the few Bauhaus graduates to complete multiple technical degrees. In July 1927, she passed her journeyman’s examination (Gesellenprüfung), administered by the Glauchau Chamber of Commerce; in March 1928, she received the general Bauhaus certificate, attesting to successful completion of her studies; and in June 1930, long after she had left the school, she received Bauhaus Diploma number twelve. These documents emphasize her aptitude for artistic work; one states, for example, that “Miss Hollós has ideal talents for creative work. Her predisposition is supported by tremendous energy, self-discipline, diligence, and endurance. She has a well-developed and keen sense for materials and how to combine them. Her accomplishments in design and execution can be described as excellent.”

Ruth Hollós, gobelin tapestry, c. 1926

It is no surprise then that the young textile designer earned a certain renown. In its 1926 premier edition, the bauhaus journal advertised a tapestry by Ruth Hollós. That same year, she collaborated on the interior design of Dessau’s theater café. She also helped furnish the Berlin apartment of famous theater director Erwin Piscator; quite a prestigious commission at the time. This prestige was reflected in avant-garde photographer Sasha Stone’s well-known photographs of “Heim Piscators” (the Piscator home), published in the leading illustrated German lifestyle magazine, Die Dame, in April 1928.

That same month, the highly qualified Bauhaus graduate moved to Königsberg, a remote city in East Prussia, to become creative and technical director of the hand-weaving studio of a home-worker’s union (Verein für volkstümliche Heimarbeit Ostpreußen e.V.). In December 1929, she returned to Dessau where her former school friend Erich Consemüller was living; the two had long been in a relationship and were considered a “model couple” among Bauhäusler. In 1927 Consemüller had photographed the fun-loving Hollós as a wild, modern woman with tousled hair in his memorable snapshot Marcel Breuer and his Harem, along with Martha Erps and Katt Both. The couple were married in 1930, and when Erich—then deputy director of the Bauhaus‘s architecture department—was offered a position at the Burg Giebichenstein School of Art and Design, Ruth moved with him.

Between 1929 and 1932, she designed floor coverings and runners for the long-established Herford Carpet Factory (Herforder Teppichfabrik), which placed great value on high-quality wool and consistently purchased designs by renowned artists. The company’s surviving pattern books list eight works by Hollós, documented in black-and-white photographs. Her linear designs draw on the stylistic elements that distinguished her Bauhaus work. Stripes of varying widths, some of which extend into squares or rectangles, dominate these designs; they also evoke Bauhaus design principles in their contrasting light and dark tones and the manner of background color incorporation.

“Miss Hollós has ideal talents for creative work. Her predisposition is supported by tremendous energy, self-discipline, diligence, and endurance.”

Text from Bauhaus Diploma number twelve

With the birth of their daughter, Brigitte in 1933, and son, Stephan in 1938, Ruth turned her attention to her family and abandoned her artistic career. Erich, who had been dismissed from Giebichenstein in 1933, made a living at various architecture firms in Leipzig and Halle until, in 1938, he was professionally banned (Berufsverbot) and expelled from the Reichs Chamber of Fine Arts because of his wife’s Jewish origins. Immediately after the war, he was appointed as an urban designer and city planner by the City of Halle. A year after her husband’s death in 1957, Hollós-Consemüller fled to West Berlin and subsequently moved to Cologne, where she once again turned her focus to weaving tapestries.