Hedwig Bollhagen (East Germany)

A friend living in Potsdam in (the then) East Germany sent me this pretty little hand-painted earthenware mug (and a bowl long ago smashed) some time in the 1990s. I have forgotten the female maker/decorator's name so would appreciate it if anyone recognises it.

Hedwig Bollhagen with the impressed GDR art traders mark

never seen this model before seems to be a rare one

Thank you very much! Wish I still had the bowl!

the "Staatlicher Kunsthandel der DDR" mark has been on Bollhagen items from 1976 forwards....

http://www.hedwig-bollhagen.de/
you might find at least the shape here

I did! And what a fascinating woman

unfortunately that page only tells half of the truth....
bollhagen took over the Haël-Werkstätten für Künstlerische Keramik of Margarete Heymann-Loebenstein in 1933.
The NSDAP expropriated the Lobensteins because the were Jews payed far too less for the company on April 26th 1934.

This was part of the "Aryanisation Program" and then the Nazis sold the Workshop to Hedwig Bollhagen for a little money. All this happend under the aegis of NSDAP-Member Dr. Heinrich Schild.

Schild has been an old Friend of the Bollhagen Family an Bollhagen opened the workshop may 1st 1934 and never said sorry or even mentioned this wasn't ok.....

even Bollhagen did some good designs her pots have a bad taste....
and Heymann-Loebenstein has been far more gifted than Bollhagen....

https://www.google.de/search?q=Heymann-Loebenstein&aq=f&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=n-pdUfjNJMTOtQb9hYDQBA&biw=1183&bih=595&sei=oepdUYG_GIWktAba_4GQBA

bollhagen took over the Haël-Werkstätten für Künstlerische Keramik of Margarete Heymann-Loebenstein in 1934 not 1933 as written above....

Yes - I read that too. A sorry tale indeed.

I am hooked researching the story now http://www.welt.de/kultur/article2212841/Wie-eine-Keramikerin-vom-Naziregime-profitierte.html

http://www.fembio.org/english/biography.php/woman/biography/hedwig-bollhagen/

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/travel/three-glimpses-of-a-century.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm