Gretel Schulte-Hostedde – ceramist designs for Hedwig Bollhagen
The sculptor and ceramist, who works in building and garden ceramics for well-known architects such as Bruno Paul, worked with the HB workshops in Marwitz around 1940. Here she designs tableware. Charles Crodel glazes and decorates some of their pieces.
Gretel Schulte-Hostedde - Some of her works are in the collections of the HB workshops
Gretel Schulte-Hostedde (* August 12, 1902 in Brühl (Rhineland); † September 8, 1973 Brühl) started her career with an apprenticeship at the Cologne School of Applied Arts, e.g. in the ceramics class with Dorkas Reinacher-Härlin, where she u. learns how to turn freely on the potter's wheel. After graduating in Cologne, she went to Berlin in 1927 and studied at the United State Schools for Free and Applied Arts (VSS). The interdisciplinary courses also include the pottery workshop of Otto Douglas Douglas-Hill, who experiments with glazes and faience painting. After graduating from the VSS, Gretel Schulte-Hostedde worked primarily on architectural sculptures and reliefs in Berlin. She receives commissions from the architect Bruno Paul - a committed supporter of the Werkbund and Bauhaus ideas - and the Deutsche Werkstätten in Dresden-Hellerau.
Around 1940 she worked with Hedwig Bollhagen's HB workshop in Marwitz. Gretel Schulte-Hostedde designs crockery for HB, the painter Charles Crodel glazes and decorates some of her pieces in the workshops.
After the war, she managed to start a new career as a freelancer at the State Majolica Manufactory in Karlsruhe. Among other things, reliefs, murals, plaster ceramics, fully sculpted works and many unique pieces are created here, including 345 small series glazed by hand.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Schulte-Hostedde exhibited at most trade fairs for German arts and crafts. Her works can also be seen in Cannes, Madrid, Amsterdam, Syracuse (N.Y.), Prague and Nice, at the Milan Triennials and at the Brussels World Exhibition in 1958. In 1967 she showed her garden ceramics at the Federal Horticultural Show in Karlsruhe.
Some of her works are now in the collections of the HB workshops in Marwitz and in the Ceramics Museum in Berlin.