Ovals

Date: 1967
 * [[image:http://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=http://americanart.si.edu/images/2006/2006.29.1_1a.jpg&max=460 width="175" height="328" link="@http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=76367"]] || Title: **Ovals**

Artist: **Else Regensteiner** Born: Munich, Germany 1906 Died: Chicago, Illinois 2003

Medium: wool and other fibers Dimensions: 60 x 30 in. (152.4 x 76.2 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of Helga Regensteiner Sinaiko

Accession: 2006.29.1 || Else Regensteiner was an internationally renowned textile designer and weaver who meshed patience and flair, discipline and color.She was an influential teacher of generations of weavers at the School of the Art Institute and an artist whose clients included Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and Raymond Loewy.
 * Biographical Information: **

Born in Munich, Germany, she studied at the University of Munich and the Deutsche Frauenschule.She came to this country in 1936--becoming a U.S. citizen in 1942- -and studied at the Chicago Institute of Design with emigre Bauhaus artists including painter Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and weaver Marli Ehrman. She also learned weaving and design from Anni and Josef Alberts at Black Mountain College in North Carolina.

In 1945, with her partner, Julia McVicker, Mrs. Regensteiner founded reg/wick studio, custom designing and handweaving fabrics for architects and interior designers.She also was known for her books, the private workshops she conducted for more than 25 years, weavers' study tours to Central and South America, Scandinavia, the Balkans, the Middle East and Britain, and her lectures.

"She was enormously visual," said her daughter Helga Sinaiko. "When her eyesight started failing in the last couple of years, we offered her story tapes, but she didn't want them. She was mourning the loss of her vision. The world was all color for her."

Mrs. Regensteiner was on the board of directors of the Handweavers Guild of America from 1969 to 1976. She frequently was a juror and curatorial consultant for museum exhibits. In 1980, the Regensteiner Award was established in her name by the Midwest Weavers Association.

Her teaching career began in 1941 at Jane Addams Hull House. The next year, she joined the Institute of Design and in 1945 joined the faculty of the Art Institute school, where she was a professor until 1971. She then conducted workshops and independent courses for professional weavers, and from 1972 to 1978 was a consultant to the American Farm School in Thessaloniki, Greece. She is the author of //The Art of Weaving, Weavers' Study Course Sourcebook for Ideas and Techniques and Geometric Design in Weaving//. [Copyright The Chicago Sun-Times, Inc.]

Artist Biography SAAM Collections Page
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