Otto LINDIG

The ceramist Otto Lindig belongs to the most important studio ceramists of the 20th century and is one of the best known Bauhäusler in the field of ceramics. He studied at the Bauhaus and later became master of the Bauhaus pottery Dornburg, which he took over. Lindig first studied sculpture. It is assumed that he became familiar with ceramics at an early age when he took part in Henry van de Velde’s modelling class from 1913 to 1915.

“Basically, pottery is always the same thing – and a very simple one. You take some earth – dirt, someone once said to me – and form a hollow vessel out of it.”

Otto Lindig [1]

Overview of the biographical data of Otto Lindig

1895 born in Pößneck, Germany 1913-1915 participation in the ceramics and modeling class of Henry van de Velde at the Großherzoglich Sächsische Kunstgewerbeschule in Weimar 1915-1918 sculptor studies at the Großherzoglich Sächsische Hochschule für Bildende Kunst in Weimar 1919 sculptor in the master atelier at the Staatlichen Bauhaus Weimar

1920 apprentice in the ceramic department of the Bauhaus, Dornburg 1922 apprenticeship certification exam; technical management of the Bauhaus ceramics studio; Theodor Bogler was responsible for the commercial management 1930 Lindig takes over the studio in Dornburg as tenant 4. Juli 1966 died in Wiesbaden, Germany Sources: see Fn. [2] and [3]

Henry van de Velde’s designs?

Otto Lindig’s artistic education began from 1909-1911 at the drawing and modelling school in Lichte. An apprenticeship followed in Ilmenau with the sculptor Max Bechstein. [4] In 1913 Lindig joined Henry Van de Velde’s modelling class at the Großherzoglich Sächsische Kunstgewerbeschule in Weimar. That Lindig learned there with Henry van de Velde, he once said himself. [5] Some even speculate that he had already produced ceramics during his time at the Großherzoglich Sächsische Kunstgewerbeschule. In the Angermuseum in Erfurt there are three vessels which were probably made by Lindig according to the designs of Henry van de Velde; however, there is no final confirmation of this yet. [6] Liebfriede Bernstiel, Otto Lindig’s collaborator and partner, could only remember that Lindig had already attempted glazes at the Kunstgewerbeschule. [7] From 1915-1918 Otto Lindig studied sculpture at the Großherzoglich Sächsische Hochschule für Bildende Kunst in Weimar.

Once a student at the Bauhaus

In 1919 Lindig moved into a master studio at the Staatliche Bauhaus Weimar as a freshly graduated sculptor. Just one year later he was an apprentice in the ceramic studio of the Bauhaus in Dornburg. There Otto Lindig learned the craft of ceramics from the Dornburg master ceramist Max Krehan. The sculptor Gerhard Marcks, the form master of the Bauhaus pottery, remembered this time even years later: “The apprenticeship at Krehan – the last Thuringian master – was hard and comprised splitting wood (what quantities for the old Kassel kiln!), digging clay and emptying the cloaca.” [8]

Bauhaus pottery in Dornburg

After his journeyman’s examination in 1922, Lindig remained active in the Bauhaus pottery Dornburg and took over its technical management in 1924; his brother-in-law Theodor Bogler was responsible for the commercial management. Bogler remembered the early days of Dornburg with enthusiasm: “We had a piece of land to cultivate and already felt like a new generation of settlers. Art, craftsmanship, nature, technology, music, air, light, water and soil pointed us to the natural wholeness of life”. [9]

When the Staatliche Bauhaus had to flee from Weimar to Dessau in 1925 due to a shift to the right in the thuringian government, the Dornburg pottery studio was incorporated into the successor institution of the Bauhaus, the Weimarer Hochschule für Handwerk und Baukunst, as a training studio. After his master craftsman’s examination in 1926, Lindig took over the management of the pottery; master craftsman Krehan died very young in 1925.

The Bauhaus in Dessau based on a design by Walter Gropius

Photo: Robert Züblin

In 1930 Lindig finally took over the Dornburg studio as a tenant. From 1930, the first Nazi government in Germany reigned in Thuringia. The new head of the Weimarer Hochschule für Handwerk und Baukunst, the fascist Paul Schultze-Naumburg, was an opponent of humanistic art education. He had little interest in the former Bauhaus pottery Dornburg, which was also unprofitable. [10]

In order to increase sales of Lindig’s ceramics, the association “Friends of Dornburg Ceramics” was founded in 1931/ 1932 by the museum directors Johanna Stirnemann and Eberhard Schenk zu Schweinsberg. [11] Through a subscription offer, the members received annual gifts specially produced for the association. The membership fee was 10 Reichsmark. The number of members is unknown. [12] The following annual gifts are known [13]:

1931/ 32: Lid can

1932/ 33: Bowl with ring decoration

1933/ 34: Coffee pot

1934/ 35: Hight vase

1935/ 36: Bowl

The signature of these pieces consisted of the studio stamp in a circle and the respective year. [14]

The studio in Dornburg suffered from financial difficulties until well into the 1930s. Again and again Lindig had to ask for lease and rental deferrals. Some of the landlords had already written off Lindig: “We will probably never get the full lease amount (outstanding debts) from Lindig again. Collection is hardly successful.” [15] Towards the end of the thirties the financial situation of the studio improved. But even now Lindig could not start to fly high. One reason for the low financial resources was that Lindig demanded extremely little money for his ceramics. [16]

About the work process in the pottery: There were six foot turntables for the apprentices and journeymen. Master Lindig had his own room. The pupils also turned ceramics and took over the biscuit firing – also called raw firing. Here the clay pot is first fired without glaze. The glaze firing was carried out by Otto Lindig himself. [17] The same applied to the production of the glaze. [18]

At the end of the thirties, the painter Otto Hofmann also worked in the Lindig workshop. The former Bauhaus student painted plates and jugs as well as tiles with folkloric incised décors. [19] The Nazis had early on incited Hofmann’s works to be “degenerate” (“entartet”), which is why he could no longer be active as an independent artist until 1945. In Lindig’s studio, however, he was able to continue working.

The joy of experimentation

Gerhard Marcks provides insights into Lindig’s love of experimentation: “With the mastery of craftsmanship, the courage to experiment grew: wonderful monsters of jugs and pots emerged from Lindig’s hand, but the fantastic was always tamed to an almost elegant form.” [20]
However, these pieces would have been less suitable for sale, which is why Lindig concentrated on more moderate forms in everyday workshop life. However, this did not prevent him from reviving his penchant for experimenting with glazes now and then, which leaves Marcks full of praise: “The old pots were made with lead monoxide, salt, iron, copper and tin, to which engobe clay was added as colour: primitive secrets. Now, experiments were carried out there as well, to the delight of the eye and, if possible, without the technical pharmacist. Many pieces have come out of the oven, which can confidently be seen next to eastern ceramics.” [21]

The Lindig expert Hans-Peter Jakobson says of Lindig’s glazes: “A highlight for me are the multi-layer glazes which, since the 1930s mostly used on voluminous spherical or cylindrical floor vases, form an incredibly dense play of colours. The most delicate watercolour-like gradients of different grey alternate with zones of finely crystallised blue or mauve tones.” [22]

Vase from the studio Otto Lindig – around 1940

Photo: Robert Züblin

Lindig was first and foremost a form giver

At the Bauhaus pottery in Dornburg, very simple moulds were specifically worked on in order to produce ceramics in mass production using casting processes. [23] Although the formal language of Lindig’s vessels is reduced, it is still organic and untypical of the Bauhaus. It gives the impression that Lindig never separated himself from Art Nouveau, the style of his youth. Otto Lindig came from the world of sculpture. So it is not surprising that he saw in pottery above all a “sculptural affair”.

His whole vocation belonged to shaping forms. But it was not the only thing that inspired him about pottery. The glaze also fascinated him. He describes it as the “charming play of surfaces and colours, […]. The glaze, the skin, is often a petty, often insidious, heavy annoying affair – one experiences very dark hours there – but on the whole it’s a game. A game with formulas, with materials – inconspicuous, mysterious, kitschy coloured, etc. If they are then ground together into dull porridges, they always contain the same tension of the potter on the result, which only becomes apparent when the assembled piece has been subjected to the embarrassing procedure of the high fire. The form is more serious, nothing essential changes about it when it has finally left the potter’s wheel. The ever-recurring, ever-new tension in front of the furnace that is to be opened applies above all to the glaze failure”. [24]

The model catalogue of the Otto Lindig studio dating from 1931 provides interesting insights into the quality of the shard and glazes used: “The shard is highly fired, similar to stoneware and dense even without glaze; the glazes are matched to the shard and fired at a high temperature. This prevents the glaze or the body from cracking or bursting when the temperature changes.” [25]

Against the background of the triumph of industrial production and the decline of small studios, Lindig warned against underestimating the importance of studio work: “Craftsmanship offers the opportunity for development, for the growth of creative abilities, for the shaping of personality. […] In the possibility of free play with form, in searching, discarding, finding – in freedom and originality lies the wealth of craftsmanship compared to factory work, which can only work rationally according to a precise timetable and on fixed tracks.” [26]

Fresh start in Hamburg

After the Second World War, Lindig briefly resumed studio operations in Dornburg. Due to renewed material shortages he decided in 1947 to follow the call of Gerhard Marcks from Hamburg. Lindig initially received a teaching position at the Landeskunstschule Hamburg. He then headed the ceramics class there [27] and was responsible for ceramics education until 1960. Lindig completely gave up his workshop in Dornburg in 1949. [28]

Liebfriede Bernstiel, who had already worked in the Dornburg workshop from 1939 to 1946, was at Lindig’s side again in Hamburg – also privately. In 1952, her daughter Christiane Bernstiel was born.

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Sources:

[1] Otto Lindig: Über meine Arbeiten…, in: SIGILL Blätter für Buch und Kunst, Heft 1, Folge 6, Otto Rohse Presse, Hamburg 1977, pp. 7 f.

[2] Weber, Klaus (ed.): Keramik und Bauhaus, Berlin 1989, pp. 20, 265 f.

[3] Förderkreis Keramik-Museum Bürgel e.V., Träger des Keramikmuseums Bürgel (ed.): Otto Lindig, Die Dornburger Zeit, Gera 2010, p. 46.

[4] Jakobson, Hans-Peter: Homage Otto Lindig, in: Wiss. Z. Hochsch. Archit. Bauwes. – A. – Weimar 36 (1990) 1-3, S. 141.

[5] Jakobson, Hans-Peter: Otto Lindig: „Im Grunde ist das Töpfemachen ja immer die gleiche Sache…“, in: Weber, Klaus (ed.): Keramik und Bauhaus, Berlin 1989, p. 50.

[6] Jakobson, Hans-Peter: Otto Lindig: „Im Grunde ist das Töpfemachen ja immer die gleiche Sache…“, in: Weber, Klaus (ed.): Keramik und Bauhaus, Berlin 1989, p. 46.

[7] Jakobson, Hans-Peter: Otto Lindig: „Im Grunde ist das Töpfemachen ja immer die gleiche Sache…“, in: Weber, Klaus (ed.): Keramik und Bauhaus, Berlin 1989, p. 46.

[8] Gerhard Marcks: Otto Lindig, in: SIGILL Blätter für Buch und Kunst, Heft 1, Folge 6, Otto Rohse Presse, Hamburg 1977, pp. 21 f.

[9] Theodor Bogler, Ein Mönch erzählt, Honnef/Rh. 1959, p. 60.

[10] Jakobson, Hans-Peter: Homage Otto Lindig, in: Wiss. Z. Hochsch. Archit. Bauwes. – A. – Weimar 36 (1990) 1-3, p. 143.

[11] Jakobson, Hans-Peter: Homage Otto Lindig, in: Wiss. Z. Hochsch. Archit. Bauwes. – A. – Weimar 36 (1990) 1-3, p. 143.

[12] Jakobson, Hans-Peter: Otto Lindig: „Im Grunde ist das Töpfemachen ja immer die gleiche Sache…“, in: Weber, Klaus (ed.): Keramik und Bauhaus, Berlin 1989, p. 53.

[13] Jakobson, Hans-Peter: Otto Lindig: „Im Grunde ist das Töpfemachen ja immer die gleiche Sache…“, in: Weber, Klaus (ed.): Keramik und Bauhaus, Berlin 1989, p. 53.

[14] Förderkreis Keramik-Museum Bürgel e.V., Träger des Keramikmuseums Bürgel (ed.): Otto Lindig, Die Dornburger Zeit, Gera 2010, p. 17, 22.

[15] Jakobson, Hans-Peter: Otto Lindig: „Im Grunde ist das Töpfemachen ja immer die gleiche Sache…“, in: Weber, Klaus (ed.): Keramik und Bauhaus, Berlin 1989, pp. 51-53.

[16] Jakobson, Hans-Peter: Otto Lindig: „Im Grunde ist das Töpfemachen ja immer die gleiche Sache…“, in: Weber, Klaus (ed.): Keramik und Bauhaus, Berlin 1989, p. 56.

[17] Jakobson, Hans-Peter: Otto Lindig: „Im Grunde ist das Töpfemachen ja immer die gleiche Sache…“, in: Weber, Klaus (ed.): Keramik und Bauhaus, Berlin 1989, p. 53.

[18] Erinnerungen Marieluise Fischers an ihre Lehrzeit bei Otto Lindig in Dornburg – Ein Interview, in: Förderkreis Keramik-Museum Bürgel e.V., Träger des Keramikmuseums Bürgel (ed.): Otto Lindig, Die Dornburger Zeit, Gera 2010, p. 38.

[19] Jakobson, Hans-Peter: Otto Lindig: „Im Grunde ist das Töpfemachen ja immer die gleiche Sache…“, in: Weber, Klaus (ed.): Keramik und Bauhaus, Berlin 1989, p. 56.

[20] Gerhard Marcks: Otto Lindig, in: SIGILL Blätter für Buch und Kunst, Heft 1, Folge 6, Otto Rohse Presse, Hamburg 1977, pp. 21 f.

[21] Gerhard Marcks: Otto Lindig, in: SIGILL Blätter für Buch und Kunst, Heft 1, Folge 6, Otto Rohse Presse, Hamburg 1977, p. 21 f.

[22] Jakobson, Hans-Peter: Otto Lindig: „Im Grunde ist das Töpfemachen ja immer die gleiche Sache…“, in: Weber, Klaus (ed.): Keramik und Bauhaus, Berlin 1989, p. 55.

[23] Gerhard Marcks: Otto Lindig, in: SIGILL Blätter für Buch und Kunst, Heft 1, Folge 6, Otto Rohse Presse, Hamburg 1977, pp. 21 f.

[24] Otto Lindig: Über meine Arbeiten…, in: SIGILL Blätter für Buch und Kunst, Heft 1, Folge 6, Otto Rohse Presse, Hamburg 1977, pp. 7 f.

[25] Jakobson, Hans-Peter: Otto Lindig: „Im Grunde ist das Töpfemachen ja immer die gleiche Sache…“, in: Weber, Klaus (ed.): Keramik und Bauhaus, Berlin 1989, p. 52.

[26] Otto Lindig: Keramikklasse, in: SIGILL Blätter für Buch und Kunst, Heft 1, Folge 6, Otto Rohse Presse, Hamburg 1977, p. 39.

[27] Jakobson, Hans-Peter: Otto Lindig: „Im Grunde ist das Töpfemachen ja immer die gleiche Sache…“, in: Weber, Klaus (ed.): Keramik und Bauhaus, Berlin 1989, p. 56.

[28] Jakobson, Hans-Peter: Homage Otto Lindig, in: Wiss. Z. Hochsch. Archit. Bauwes. – A. – Weimar 36 (1990) 1-3, pp. 143 f.