Exhibitions
Current
Vibrant Joie de Vivre. Industrial Ceramics of the Post-War Era, 1950–1980
The Kannenbäckerland region is globally renowned for its salt-glazed, grey-blue ceramics. Yet for around 150 years, it has offered far more than just traditional stoneware. This exhibition turns the spotlight on an era that deserves greater recognition in the Westerwald: the serially produced ceramics of the post-war period.
The economic upswing from 1948 marked a profound transformation. On the one hand, a thriving consumer society emerged, characterised by optimism, a desire for prosperity, and a longing for stability. The colourful ceramics, proudly bearing the label “Made in West Germany,” embodied this new zest for life. On the other hand, this boom was often built on precarious working conditions and environmentally damaging production processes. The exhibition therefore not only showcases the distinctive aesthetics of the era but also engages with the ambiguities of this renewed golden age in Westerwald ceramic history.
The economic miracle of the ceramics industry, however, was not uniquely German but a Western European phenomenon. Denis Bousch and Jörn Garleff have compared the ceramic developments in France and Germany after 1950 in a joint project. Their findings were previously presented at the Musées d’Art et d’Industrie in Saint-Étienne. The Ceramics Museum now focuses particularly on the Westerwald and the people who shaped this era.
The exhibition and the comprehensive, bilingual accompanying catalogue (F / D) bring this extraordinary period into the spotlight at the Ceramics Museum for the first time.
The Bauhaus ceramics class 1920-1925
17.10.2025 - 7.6.2026
Exactly one hundred years ago, the Bauhaus ceramics workshop in Dornburg, Thuringia, closed its doors. The Westerwald Ceramics Museum is dedicating a special exhibition to this influential ceramics class.
At the beginning of the 20th century, anyone who decided to train in ceramics had three options: an apprenticeship, training at a technical college or studying at an arts and crafts school.
After the First World War, the educational spectrum was expanded to include the Bauhaus in Weimar, which established its own ceramics class. A small group of young people with different educational backgrounds felt magically drawn to the Bauhaus ideal. They were all united by the desire to overcome the traditional boundaries between fine and applied art as artistic avant-garde.
Exhibition view: Otto Lindig and Marguerite Friedlaender. Photo: Helge Articus
Until the closure of the Weimar Bauhaus in 1925, a new and modern aesthetic of exceptional quality emerged in Dornburg. Experimentation and tradition were not mutually exclusive. With the relocation of the Bauhaus from Weimar to Dessau, the Dornburg ceramics class also disbanded after five years. Some Bauhaus students, such as Werner Burri, Otto Lindig and Marguerite Friedlaender, later became teachers themselves and thus influenced subsequent generations.
This exhibition commemorates this special ceramics class. At the same time, it gives an impression of ceramics teaching at that time and also reveals the previously unknown connections to the ceramics college in Höhr.
From Marguerite Friedlaender's sketchbook: Höhr, 25 June 1928. The Linderhohl swimming pool in Grenzhausen opened in the summer of 1928 and was the first of its kind in the wider area. The Steuler company can be seen in the background. Courtesy of Gail Stewart.
The exhibition is a collaborative project with the Bauhaus Workshop Museum in Dornburg, the only remaining workshop of this legendary art school. Here, the exhibition was on display in spring 2025 under the title ‘Bauhaus in Dornburg. Insel der Eigenbrötler’. With funding from the Ernst von Siemens Art Foundation, an accompanying catalogue has been published and is available in the museum shop.
