Max Laeuger

Max Laeuger, born in Lörrach, Germany in 1864, was a multi-talented artist who created graphics, craft objects, ceramics, interior and garden architecture. He was also a professor and writer. From 1881 to 1884 Laeuger studied painting and interior design with Franz Sales Mayer at the Arts and Crafts School in Karlsruhe. He later taught there while working at potteries in Kandern during vacations. Between 1892 and 1893, he studied at the Academie Julian in Paris. In 1893, Laeuger began making lead glazed slipware, which he subsequently produced at the workshop of J. Armbruster in Kandern. His vases were decorated with low-relief designs and painted in bright colors. Five years later, Laeuger founded and became the director of a craft pottery in Kandern and also accepted a professorial appointment at Karlsruhe University. His workshop produced plates painted with metal oxides over a coating of white slip, and covered with a crackled and slightly bubbled transparent glaze. He exhibited ceramics, graphic and sculptural works at the World Exhibition 1900 in Paris and 1904 in St. Louis.

In 1907 Laeuger, along with Peter Behrens, Richard Riemerschmid and others, co-founded the Deutscher Werkbund (German Work Federation) in Munich, an association of architects, designers and industrialists. He established a studio in Karlsruhe Majolica factory in 1916 and worked there until the building was destroyed by bombs in 1944.

Laeuger died in 1952 in Lörrach. He is regarded as one of the pioneers of 20th-century ceramics design.