Kurt Stolp was born on 26 May 1904 in Biechowo, Poland. He enrolled at the Bauhaus Dessau as student number 214 in the winter term of 1927. He started his studies with the preliminary course and went on to train in the printing and advertising workshop. In spring 1929 he worked on a stand designed by Joost Schmidt for the company Junkers, for the exhibition ‘Gas und Wasser’ in Berlin. In the winter term, he attended classes in the stage workshop. Stolp was a member of the Association of Revolutionary Visual Artists of Germany (ASSO), a communist artists’ group. He married Meta Kuhr, who had been a Bauhaus student from 1926. On 30 March 1931 Kurt Stolp was awarded the Bauhaus Diploma No. 38 from the advertising workshop.
After his graduation Stolp left his family and went to live in Prague where he worked for various Communist magazines, among others as graphic designer for Rudé právo. He was also involved in the preparations for the exhibition ‘Proletarisches Wohnen’ (Proletarian Living) that was shown in Prague and Brno in 1932 – an exhibition concept by Czech leftist architects. The police prohibited the exhibition; the leftist press made a report of this.
In 1934 he became part of the permanent staff atthe editorial office of the magazine ‘Arbeiter Illustrierte Zeitung’ (AIZ). This was published weekly in Berlin from 1921 to 1933, then in exile in Prague until 1938, where it called for resistance against the NS regime. Stolp was member of the association of emigrated German speaking artists. After the occupation of Czechoslovakia in 1939 by the German troops Kurt Stolp was drawn to the military service as a writer and draftsman for the armament inspection in Prague. In 1946 he returned to East Berlin. There, he was involved in setting up the photo archive Illus-Bilderdienst, subsequently Zentralbild, the photo archive of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Nachrichtendienst (ADN) (General German News Service). In 1947 Stolp moved to Dessau to live and work with Hubert Hoffmann, who was engaged in a project to safeguard and regenerate the damaged Bauhaus. When this project collapsed and Hoffmann had to flee to West Berlin, Stolp also lost his job and returned to East Berlin. There, he first worked for Deutsche Film AG (DEFA), then from 1948 as picture editor of the ‘Berliner Zeitung’ and subsequently for the ADN. In 1975 he was awarded the Vaterländischer Verdienstorden (Patriotic Order of Merit) of the GDR. He, along with many other former Bauhauslers, was present at the fiftieth anniversary of the partly renovated Bauhaus Dessau on 4 December 1976.
[BK]
