Trude Guermonprez

Trude Guermonprez was born in Danzig (modern Gdańsk). Her parents were Austrian and were active in the arts.[4] She took on weaving while living in Halle, Germany, where she attended the Municipal School of Arts and Crafts. She was married to a photographer and former student of the Bauhaus, Paul Guermonprez, who died in 1944 while fighting in the Dutch resistance. Guermonprez worked in the Netherlands and then, after six years, relocated to the United States, with the support of Anni Albers.[3]

In 1947, Guermonprez began teaching weaving and design at Black Mountain College near Asheville, North Carolina while Anni Albers was away on sabbatical, and to be with her mother Johanna Jalowetz and sister Lisa Aronson, who were also at the school.[5] Upon Anni's return, Guermonprez was asked to continue as a full-time faculty member. She remained at Black Mountain College until the dissolution of the weaving program in 1949.[6]

After leaving Black Mountain college, Guermonprez joined the Pond Farm artist collective run by Bauhaus-trained ceramicist Marguerite Wildenhain in Guerneville, California,[7] and taught at the Pond Farm Workshops. She remarried, marrying John Elsesser. The couple moved to San Francisco.

Trude Jalowetz in Amsterdam (1937)

Guermonprez combined the painterly possibilities of silkscreen with the structural geometry implicit in warp and weft to create fiber wall hangings that are both texturally rich and delicately drawn.[2]

Throughout her career, the majority of her work was private commission.[3]

• The Tapestries of Trude Guermonprez,, 1982, Oakland Museum of California[8]

Among the honors which Trude Guermonprez has earned are:

Craftsmanship Medal of the American Institute of Architects (1970)[1]

Guermonprez died on 8 May 1976 in San Francisco.[1]

Guermonprez started her teaching career at Black Mountain College. She worked at Oakland College and at the San Francisco Art Institute.[9] In 1954 Guermonprez joined the faculty of California College of Arts and Crafts.[9] She served as chair of the crafts department, at the California College of Arts and Crafts, overseeing: metal arts, ceramics, glass blowing, stitchery and textile printing, as well as supervising the weaving curriculum.[9]

Her students included Kay Sekimachi Stocksdale, Ann Wilson, and Jane Lackey, among others.[3]

• Cooper Hewitt says... Biography of Trude Guermonprez
• Trude Guermonprez at the Art Institute of Chicago
• Trude Guermonprez papers, 1929-1986 Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution