Project title
Margarethe Moll
Object description

* 2 August 1884 in Mulhouse (Alsace-Lorraine); † 15 March 1977 in Munich
 
German sculptress and painter
 
Margarethe Moll, called Mag Moll, is one of the forgotten German female artists of Classical Modernism. Her sculptural work reveals a great affinity for the French avant-garde.
 
Marg Moll takes painting lessons very early and discovers her interest in sculpture. In 1905 the painter Oskar Moll becomes her teacher and a year later her husband. The two move to Berlin. She is here instructed by Lovis Corinth. In 1907 the Molls become friends with Henri Matisse in Paris. In 1908 Marg Moll works under the tutelage of Matisse in his newly opened academy. At the end of the year the couple moves back to Berlin. In 1914 Marg Moll exhibits her work at Fritz Gurlitt’s in Berlin. In 1919 her husband is appointed to the Art Academy in Breslau. From there in the 1920s, Marg Moll travels several times to Paris and there becomes the student of the painter, Fernand Léger. She meets the Romanian sculptor Constantin Brancusi, among others. In 1929 Marg Moll participates in the Great Art Exhibition in Berlin. In 1931 she has a co-exhibition at the Galerie Flechtheim with Oskar Schlemmer. In 1932 the Breslau Academy is closed. The family moves to Düsseldorf where Oskar Moll takes over a master’s class at the Art Academy and in 1933 is dismissed from his teaching position by the Nazis. The artist couple is banned from exhibiting. He continues to work in seclusion, from 1934 again in Berlin. Here in 1943 both their house and their artworks are destroyed by bombs. In 1947 Oskar Moll dies. Marg Moll produces an impressive sculptural late work.
Her rediscovery is triggered in 2010 when the Berlin Skulpturenfund sensationally finds her sculpture, “Dancer”, under rubble left by the war, a piece the Nazis had confiscated in 1937.