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Margaret Leischner
Leischner's student ID from the Bauhaus in Dessau
Born	(1907-04-15)April 15, 1907 Bischofswerda, Saxony, Germany
Died	May 18, 1970(1970-05-18) (aged 63) Maplehurst, West Sussex, England
Nationality	German, British
Known for	Weaving

Margaret Leischner RDI (April 15, 1907, in Bischofswerda as Frida Margarete Leischner – May 18, 1970, in Maplehurst, West Sussex, United Kingdom) was a British-German textile designer and educator. A former student at the Bauhaus, she was named Royal Designer for Industry (RDI) in 1969.

Germany

Margarete Leischner was born in Bischofswerda, to butcher Felix Arthur Leischner and his wife Anna Frieda, and grew up in Dresden.

She enrolled at the Bauhaus in Dessau in the winter semester of 1927/1928 and completed the preliminary course with Josef Albers. After passing her journeyman's examination, Leischner became Gunta Stölzl's assistant in 1930, and managed the dye works. The following year she became a freelance designer at the Deutsche Werkstätten Hellerau, in Dresden. In addition, Leischner became head of the weaving department at the Textile and Fashion School of the City of Berlin (now HTW Berlin). She was a member of the Deutscher Werkbund, and joined the Reichskunstkammer after 1933 in order to continue working as a designer.

England

In 1938, Leischner emigrated to England, where she soon called herself Margaret Leischner, and settled in the Manchester area, the center of the UK's textile industry. She worked for Team Valley Weaving Industries in Gateshead. After the outbreak of World War II, she was initially spared internment, but was later interned on the Isle of Man at Rushen Camp and Port Erin, from April 1940 to August 1942.

After her release, she continued to work for the British textile industry. She was also helped by contacts with influential people, such as Herbert Read. She maintained intensive contacts with the emigrated Bauhäusler Lucia Moholy as well as Heinz Loew and is known to have later been in communication with Walter Gropius and Joost Schmidt by letter.

Her work was included in the influential 1946 Britain Can Make It exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, organized by the Council of Industrial Design.

Leischner designed new yarns and fabrics for a number of companies, which included testing and experimenting with new materials. In 1948, three years after the war ended, she was appointed professor at the Royal College of Art in London, where she taught the weaving class, and held the position of head of the weaving department until 1963. During this time she developed aircraft interiors for BOAC, as well as upholstery for furniture and car seats. In 1955, Leischner was active in India as a consultant, primarily supporting the establishment of hand weaving mills in Kashmir. In 1959, she designed a series of floor coverings made of sisal fibers under the Tintawn Carpets brand for the company Irish Ropes, who included Leischner's name and photograph in their adverts, brochures, and leaflets.

Leischner was admitted as a member of the Society of Industrial Artists in 1952, and was a founding member of the Textile Group. In 1963, she ended her teaching career in London, becoming an honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Art, and continued as a member of the Textile Council's design scholarship committee.

Her student Eileen Ellis succeeded her at Irish Ropes/Tintawn Carpets in 1967, as Leischner was ill with cancer. The Royal Society of Arts honored her by inducting her as a Royal Designer for Industry (RDI) in 1969. Margaret Leischner died on May 18, 1970, in Maplehurst, West Sussex.

Sources

• Burcu Dogramaci: Bauhaus-Transfer. Die Textildesignerin Margaret Leischner (1907–1970) in Dessau und im britischen Exil. In: Inge Hansen-Schaberg (Hrsg.): Frauen des Bauhauses während der NS-Zeit. Verfolgung und Exil. edition text + kritik, München 2012. ISBN 978-3-86916-212-6. pp 95–116.
• Burcu Dogramaci: Margarete Leischner. In: Elizabeth Otto, Patrick Rösler (Hrsg.): Frauen am Bauhaus. Wegweisende Künstlerinnen der Moderne. Knesebeck, München 2019. ISBN 978-3-95728-230-9. pp 108f. Published in English in 2019 as Bauhaus Women: A Global Perspective ISBN 9781912217960
• Margarete Leischner. In: Patrick Rössler, Elizabeth Otto: Frauen am Bauhaus. Wegweisende Künstlerinnen der Moderne. Knesebeck, München 2019. ISBN 978-3-95728-230-9. pp 108–109. Published in English in 2019 as Bauhaus Women: A Global Perspective ISBN 9781912217960
• Weltge-Wortmann, (1993). Bauhaus Textiles: Women Artists and the Weaving Workshop. 1st ed. London: Thames Hudson. ISBN 9780500280348
• Marisa Vadillo, Women designers at the Bauhaus: The history of a silent revolution. Chapter 2.3, Margaret Leischner and the textile conquest of the United Kingdom, pp 74. (2022). ISBN 9798549712089

References

1. "Kunstgewerbemuseum: Margaret Leischner". kunstgewerbemuseum.skd.museum. Retrieved 2023-01-23.
2. Nyburg, Anna (2019-04-05). 11 Textile in Exile: Refugee Textile Surface Designers in Britain. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-39510-7.
3. "Britain can make it". Stylepark. Retrieved 2023-01-24.
4. Otto, Elizabeth (2019). Bauhaus women : a global perspective. Patrick Rössler. London, UK. p. 108. ISBN 978-1-912217-96-0. OCLC 1084302497.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
5. "METROMOD | Public Interface". METROMOD Archive. Retrieved 2023-01-23.
6. "Kunstgewerbemuseum: Margaret Leischner". kunstgewerbemuseum.skd.museum. Retrieved 2023-01-23.
7. "Margaret Leischner | Royal Designers for Industry & Britain Can Make It, 1946". blogs.brighton.ac.uk. Retrieved 2023-01-23.
8. Simon (2022-08-17). "Margaret Leischner (1908 - 1970) German textile designer". Encyclopedia of Design. Retrieved 2023-01-23.
9. "METROMOD | Public Interface". METROMOD Archive. Retrieved 2023-01-23.
10. "Margaret Leischner | Royal Designers for Industry & Britain Can Make It, 1946". blogs.brighton.ac.uk. Retrieved 2023-01-23.
11. Tomlinson, Donald (1970). "Margaret Leischner obituary". Design Journal. Vol. 5, no. 259. p. 83.

v t e Weaving
Weaves	Basketweave Charvet Coverlet Dobby Double weave Even-weave Gabardine Lampas Leno weave Oxford Pile weave Piqué Plain weave Satin Shot Swivel Twill
Components	Textiles Warp and weft Yarn
Tools and techniques	Barber-Colman knotter Beamer Braid Chilkat weaving Fingerweaving Flying shuttle Heddle Ikat Inkle weaving Kasuri Loom Navajo weaving Pibiones Reed Salish weaving Shed Shuttle Sizing Sizing machine Tablet weaving Talim Tāniko Tapestry Temple Wattle Wicker Resin
Types of looms	Air-jet loom Dandy loom Dobby loom Hattersley loom Horrocks loom Jacquard loom Lancashire loom Northrop loom Power loom Rapier loom Roberts loom Warp-weighted loom
Weavers	Acesas Anni Albers Otti Berger Micheline Beauchemin Johanna Brunsson Ada Dietz Thomas Ferguson & Co Ltd Elisabeth Forsell Dorothy Liebes Ethel Mairet Maria Elisabet Öberg Lilly Reich Margaretha Reichardt John Rylands Brigitta Scherzenfeldt Clara Sherman Gunta Stölzl Judocus de Vos Margaretha Zetterberg
Employment practices	More looms Kissing the shuttle Piece-rate list
Mills	Bancroft Shed Queen Street Mill

v t e Tapestry
Tapestries	Adoration of the Magi Apocalypse Tapestry Amnesty-Sís-Pinton Tapestries Armada tapestries Battle of Pavia tapestries Bayeux Tapestry Bayeux Tapestry tituli Hunts of Maximilian Christ in Glory in the Tetramorph Cloth of St Gereon The Death of Polydorus Devonshire Hunting Tapestries Game of Thrones Tapestry Great Tapestry of Scotland Great Tapestry of Scotland: People's Panel Grödinge tapestry Gunthertuch Hestia Tapestry The History of Constantine Holy Grail tapestries The Unicorn Tapestries Hunting of Birds with a Hawk and a Bow Jagiellonian tapestries The Justice of Trajan and Herkinbald Lady and the Unicorn New World Tapestry Oseberg tapestry fragments Överhogdal tapestries Pastoral Amusements Pastrana Tapestries Raphael Cartoons Ros Tapestry Project Ryijy Sampul tapestry Scottish Diaspora Tapestry Scottish royal tapestry collection Sheldon tapestries Skog tapestry Story of Abraham The Triumph of Fame Valois Tapestries Walsall Silver Thread Tapestries The World Trade Center Tapestry
Styles	Kalaga Kesi Millefleur
Studios	Aubusson Beauvais Brussels Gobelins Moravská Gobelínová Manufaktura Morris & Co. Mortlake Pannemaeker family Royal Tapestry Factory William Baumgarten & Co
Weavers and designers	Pieter van Aelst III Anni Albers Francis Crane John Henry Dearle Dermoyen family Givi Kandareli Ida Kerkovius Lefèvre family William Morris Margaretha Reichardt Gunta Stölzl Judocus de Vos
Tapestry artists	Pieter Coecke van Aelst François Boucher Marc Chagall Francis Cleyn John Coburn Michiel Coxie Éva Farkas Petronėlė Gerlikienė Francisco Goya Blind Man's Bluff The Parasol list of tapestry cartoons Muriel Nezhnie Helfman Else Marie Jakobsen Jacob Jordaens Hans Knieper Nancy Kozikowski Jean Lurçat Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer Bernard van Orley François Quesnel Raffaello Sanzio (Raphael)
Related	Byzantine silk Embroidery Franses Tapestry Archive International Gothic Kilim Navajo weaving Needlepoint Weaving

• Bauhaus alumni
• Academic staff of the Bauhaus
• German art educators
• 20th-century German artists
• German weavers
• Textile artists
• 20th-century German women artists
• German textile artists
• 20th-century German women
• German-British culture
• British textile designers
• British textile artists
• 20th-century British textile artists
• 20th-century women textile artists
• 1907 births
• 1970 deaths