Gertrud Arndt

From 1919 to1923 Gertrud Arndt (German, 1903–2000) apprenticed at an architectural office in Erfurt while simultaneously studying at the commercial arts college. She also began to take photographs at that time. In 1923 she left Erfurt to study at the Bauhaus in Weimar, where she took courses given by Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and László Moholy-Nagy, among others, and specialized in weaving under Gunta Stölzl. In 1929 her husband Alfred Arndt was appointed a post at the Bauhaus in Dessau. Although no longer a student she enrolled in Walter Peterhans newly created photography course and continued her intense involvement with photography, taking portraits, photographs of objects, everyday scenes, and staged self-portraits. The family settled in Darmstadt in 1948, after the birth of their two children. In 1979 Arndt received international acclaim when her photographs were exhibited at Museum Folkwang.