Kurt Kranz

1930–1933 Bauhaus student

Portrait of Kurt Kranz, Photo: Siegfried Kühl, around 1994.
Portrait of Kurt Kranz, Photo: Siegfried Kühl, around 1994. © Nachlass Siegfried Kühl.
  • Born 3.5.1910 Emmerich on the Rhine, Rhineland Province (German Reich) | Germany
  • Died 22.8.1997 Wedel, Deutschland

  • Birth Name Kurt Peter Wilhelm Kranz

  • Married to Ingrid Kranz

  • Professions Graphic artist, University professor, Painter

Kurt Kranz was born in 1910 in Emmerich am Rhein. From 1925 to 1930, he completed a lithographer apprenticeship in Bielefeld. At the same time, Kranz took evening courses at the local applied arts school. He came to the Bauhaus Dessau in 1930 and studied with teachers such as Josef Albers, Joost Schmidt, Walter Peterhans, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. In 1933, Kurt Kranz received the Bauhaus diploma. He worked in the following years until 1938 as a graphic artist at the Studio Dorland with Herbert Bayer. In 1940, he was conscripted for military service in Norway and Finland. Starting in 1950, Kranz was the director for the foundation course at the State Art School of Hamburg and was appointed as a professor at the Hamburg’s Academy of Fine Arts in 1955. His activities as a guest lecturer took him to the USA, Canada and Japan. Following his retirement as a professor in 1968, he lived and worked in Suzette/France and Wedel near Hamburg. Kurt Kranz died in 1997.

  1. Literature:
  2. · Petra Kipphoff (1990): Das unendliche Bild, in: Die Zeit. Nr. 32, 3. September.
    · Renate Kübler-Reiser (1981): Kurt Kranz, Hamburg.
    · Philipp Oswalt et al. (2011): Kurt Kranz. Die Programmierung des Schönen, Berlin.

Kurt Kranz

Bauhaus Dessau: Student

Main focus: Matriculation No. 423

Bauhaus Dessau: Student

Period: 1.5.1930–9.1932
Main focus: Preliminary Courses, Advertising Workshop, Printing Workshop

Bauhaus Berlin: Student

Period: 10.1932–1.4.1933
Main focus: Advertising Workshop and Bauhaus diploma on April 1st, 1933

Landeskunstschule Hamburg

Main focus: Head of Basic Teaching (until 1959) and the Class for Free and Applied Graphics (from 1959)

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