Hedwig Marquard

1884-1969

Hedwig Marquardt was born near Magdeburg in 1884.

She was a student of Lovis Corinth and studied at the College for Art Teachers in Kassel, Germany, from 1902 to 1905 and the Ladies' Academy in Munich. She moved to Berlin in 1912 where she taught art and also studied ceramics. She worked at Majolika manufactory Karlsruhe, the Kieler Kunst Keramik, which arose in the early 1920´s and became one of the most modern equipped ceramic factories where fine and building ceramics were produced.

She later lived and taught in Karlsruhe and Hanover. Marquardt exhibited continuously from 1911 to 1963. Her exhibitions include: 1911 Juryfreie Kunstschau, Berlin; 1912 Magdeburg; 1913 Kurfustendamm, ‘Sezession’, Berlin; 1921 and 1924 Leipziger Messe; 1921 Exhbition ‘Animals in Ceramics’ Frankfurt; 1922 Frankfurter Messe; 1924 Kieler Messe; 1924 Grassi Museum, Leipzig; 1934 Hanover; 1949 Bremen; 1951 East Berlin, in connection with the ‘Evangefischer Kirchentag’; 1954 Christmas Fair of ‘Kunstlerinnenverein’ Hanover; 1958 Orangery of Herrenhausen, Hanover; 1963 Galerie Volker, Hildesheim.

In 1963 the Ministry of Education and Art of Lower Saxony (Kultusministerium von Niedersachsen) bought 2 pictures. In 1987 the British Museum purchased 5 drawings and watercolors, and in 1987/88 the Leicestershire Art Gallery bought 9.

Marquardt was a member of the Confessional Church, a Prodestant organization which strongly and vocally opposed Hitler. This was probably the main reason she left Germany in the 1930s and settled in England.

She painted mainly imaginative compositions, with a strong liking for greens and purples – which were also her preferred colors on ceramics. Early in life she favoured pure abstraction, but later achieved a fusion of abstraction and naturalism. Her works combine Cubist and Futurist techniques, she worked in oil but was a master of the use of colored pencil. Her early works today are very rare to find.

She died in Hannover in 1969.