Investigating the social and cultural contexts affecting the Bauhaus creative women's "staying in the shade" and their solutions to overcome the conditions

The Bauhaus school is known for its innovative influence on art and design. Initially, the founder of the school, Walter Gropius, announced that applicants are accepted regardless of age, gender and educational background. Many women who desired to benefit from educational opportunities of art and design applied to participate in the educational courses of the school in such a way that the number of women exceeded men. Despite his initial claim, Gropius made changes in female admission policy so that, even after entering the school, women were only allowed to work in a limited number of workshops. For this reason, most of the female students continued their studies in the weaving workshop after the preparatory courses, and few of them continued their studies in other workshops. However, the performance of some of these women was so efficient that the workshops in which they were working and training, became the school main source of income through signing contract with the industry. The purpose of this research is to investigate the background conditions of the school policy change and the path that the creative female students of the school took to break Gropius's assumptions about the masculinity of the driving force of creativity. The research method is analytical with qualitative approach. In order to better understand the conditions of women's education and work at school, the educational background and works of three of the most influential Bauhaus women, namely Gunta Stolzel, Annie Albers and Marian Brandt, were briefly reviewed. The results were contrary to the dominant patriarchal thinking at the time that women are suitable for artistic activities and two-dimensional construction due to the limitations of female brains compared to men; Bauhaus women understood the philosophy of education well and with the help of creative testing of methods and new materials were able to guide the school workshops in a dynamic way to respond to society and industry. They were also able to elevate this procedure even after the forced migration, and in addition to new methods of making artifacts, they created and innovated more by testing the capacity of other cultures.