MODERN MISOGYNY

by Eddy Rhead

As the co-founder of The Modernist Society and as one of the lead editors of our publishing arm the modernist I devote a lot of my time championing and celebrating all things Modernist. During the course of this evangelising I often find myself invoking the names of some of the undisputed ‘masters’ of Modernism such as Walter Gropius, Mike van de Rohe, and, of course, Le Corbusier. However the more I learn about some of these so called ‘masters’, especially in their treatment of women they encountered in their professional and personal lives, the more uncomfortable I become when celebrating them and their work. It is the Modern Movement’s dirty little secret that women have, at best, been marginalised and overlooked and at worse, exploited and suppressed. 


‘It is he Modern Movement’s dirty little secret that women have, at best, been marginalised and overlooked and at worse, exploited and suppressed.’


Films such ‘E.1027 - Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea’ shed light on how female designers and architects have been treated by their male peers over the years but they also serve to go some way into finally giving credit where it is due. 

Sadly, Eileen Gray was not the only woman whose work was overshadowed by Le Corbusier and his ego over the years, but we shall return to him and his misdeeds later. 

First, we must go back to the Bauhaus, the revolutionary art school that was founded by Walter Gropius in 1919 and generally considered the beginning of the Modern Movement in Europe. Although set up with a founding principle in its manifesto that “any person of good repute, without regard to age or sex” would be admitted, after more females than men applied in the first year, the female intake was deliberately reduced so as to maintain male dominance. There was also an inherent bias in the curriculum in that women were actively discouraged and barred from studying certain subjects . 

Gropius himself insisted that men were able to think in three dimensions but women could only think in two. As such women were steered away from studying subjects such as architecture and product design and ‘encouraged’ to subjects such as textiles, weaving and ceramics. The Bauhaus was certainly not the utopian, egalitarian institution that it is sometimes considered to be. Before long, however, the female intake of the school was breaking down some of the barriers imposed on them and their talents were slowly recognised, enabling them to enrol on some of the courses previously only open to men. Whilst some female practitioners such as Anni Albers and Otto Berger gained wider recognition, the story of Lucia Moholy (nee Schulz) is a nasty stain on the reputation of the Bauhaus and its founders. 

László Moholy-Nagy, Lucia Moholy Untitled 1925
© 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Lucia was married to photographer and painter László Moholy-Nagy and when he secured a teaching position at the Bauhaus in 1921 she moved with him to Weimar and soon showed a talent for photography herself. 

During the years they were married Lucia documented the staff and buildings of the Bauhaus and photographed many of the art works and products that the students produced. Even during this period her photography went uncredited and when László produced a book Malerei, Photografie, Film (Painting, Photography, Film) using her photographs and not crediting her, their marriage began to break down. In 1933 Lucia, a Jew and now in relationship with a Communist, had to flee Germany as the Nazi party rose to power. She had to leave behind all her negatives, and they fell into the hands of Walter Gropius. In her absence, Gropius proceeded to exploit this valuable resource and presented her photographs as his own, using them in publications and exhibitions. Much of the reputation that the Bauhaus gained was based on the imagery that Lucia produced but her name was completely, and wilfully, erased from her work. It was not until after the war, in 1954, that Lucia discovered this was happening and even then Gropius refused to return her negatives and only did so after a legal challenge.  


‘It was not until after the war, in 1954, that Lucia discovered this was happening and even then Gropius refused to return her negatives and only did so after a legal challenge.’  


One of the other ‘masters’ of Modernism, Mies van der Rohe, also has a woman, Lilly Reich, to thank for some of his best-known furniture designs, but she too often goes uncredited. 

Mies van der Rohe was a renowned architect and truly a genius. His name is also associated with several pieces of furniture that are now considered classics. Design icons such as the Barcelona chair, the Brno chair and the Weißenhof chair are almost always credited to Mies van der Rohe but they were all designed in collaboration with Lilly Reich and if she is mentioned, it is usually as a  footnote. Some of these chairs are still produced and available to buy, but very rarely are they described as being designed by both of them. Reich died in 1947, and Rohe's reputation grew in the time after her death, and whether or not he was complicit in her name being removed from the narrative is debatable, but as in all artistry attribution is critical. Reich’s name needs to be front and centre when talking about these pieces.

Another female designer whose contributions have somewhat been overshadowed by her husband’s achievements is Aino Aalto, who was married to the Finnish architect and designer Alvar. Although she worked in close collaboration with her husband on many textile, ceramic, glass and architectural designs and designed many pieces on her own, she was often not seen as the equal partner, and Alvar took most of the limelight. Some accounts suggest that this was out of choice and Aino was happy for her husband to be the public face whilst she got on with running the design company Artek, that she and her husband started together and which still produces their designs to this day, but Aino’s name needs to be heard as much as her husband’s when talking about their designs. 

As well as Eileen Gray Le Corbusier has credit for the work of another women, architect and designer Charlotte Perriand. When Perriand applied to work in the office of Le Corbusier in 1927 she was met with a rejection letter stating “We do not embroider cushions here’. She persisted, however and secured a place in Le Corbusier’s studio and whilst there went on to design three chairs: the B301 sling back chair; the LC2 Grand Confort chair and the B306 chaise longue, which have gone on to become design classics. But even to this day, it is her employer's name that is usually attributed to the pieces and not Perriand’s. It is not uncommon for designers' names to be lost in the course of history, especially if they are working under the auspices of an employer and in a large company that has other employees, especially in architecture. But more often, architecture and design firms are named after the head of the company and that is often a man or men and when female designers are creating important works and their male bosses are taking credit for it, then that is very problematic. 

Whilst women designers going uncredited for their work is a symptom of the wider patriarchy, in the case of Gropius and Lucia Moholy and Le Corbusier and E1027 there was a wilful and explicit subterfuge. Both of these men passed off the work of a woman as their own and perpetuated a lie for many, many years. Thanks to new research leading to exhibitions, books and films like ‘E.1027 - Eileen Gray and the House by the Sea’ the vital work of the countless talented female Modernist designers are finally getting their due credit and the men who exploited their talents are rightly having some of the shine taken off their reputations.