Else Regensteiner (1906-2003) Collection, 1914-2018

Else Regensteiner was born on April 21, 1906 in Munich, Germany and was the only child of Ludwig and Hilda Friedsam. She went to the Deutsche Frauenschule in Munich in 1924 to study early childhood education, ultimately receiving a teaching degree in order to become a kindergarten teacher. In 1926, she married Bertold Regensteiner, who operated a clothespin factory with his father and brothers. The same year, Regensteiner's mother, who had been widowed in 1924, married Ludwig Bachhofer, a professor at the University of Munich. Regensteiner's only child, Helga, was born in 1926 in Freiburg, Germany. In 1935, Regensteiner's mother and step-father moved to Chicago when officials at the University of Munich demanded Bachhofer divorce his Jewish wife. After her husband's family business was confiscated by the Nazis, Regensteiner, her husband, and her daughter joined her parents in Chicago.

While the German Bauhaus, which operated from 1919 to 1933, was an important influence on textile design while Regensteiner was in Germany, she was unaware of the school. Her interest in weaving began in 1939, when she met weaver Marli Ehrman through a friend. Ehrman had graduated from the Bauhaus and was the head of the Textile Department at the School of Design in Chicago (formerly known as the New Bauhaus School of Design). She invited Regensteiner to become her assistant, and while Regensteiner worked for Ehrman, she also took courses in weaving at the School of Design. In the summer of 1942, Regensteiner went to Black Mountain College in North Carolina to take several courses there. That autumn, Regensteiner became a weaving instructor at Hull House. In 1945, she began teaching weaving courses at the Chicago Institute of Design (formerly known as the School of Design), as well. An interior designer at the firm Watson & Boaler took one of Regensteiner's courses at the Institute of Design in 1945 and invited Regensteiner to put together an exhibit of woven fabrics for the firm. Regensteiner asked her friend Julia McVicker (1906-1990), who had been one of her classmates at the School of Design, to help her create fabrics for the exhibition. The event was a success, and when architects and interior designers who had seen the show began placing orders for fabrics, Regensteiner and McVicker formed the reg/wick studio and hired sisters Irene and Ida Suyeoka as assistant weavers.

The first reg/wick studio was located at 4357 South Oakenwald Avenue, Chicago in Julia McVicker's house. In 1952, the studio was moved to 8340 South Ingleside Avenue, Chicago. Regensteiner and McVicker designed most of their fabrics directly on the loom, without creating preliminary patterns, and their fabrics were similar in style to those that had been produced by the Bauhaus. Regensteiner specialized in designing coordinated fabrics for architects and interior designers based on elements in the interiors they had created. Regensteiner and McVicker dyed their own fabric samples and then had those dyes replicated by a commercial dye house. In addition to creating handwoven fabrics, the studio also created prototype fabric samples, some of which were then selected for mass production by Forster Textile Mills in Chicago Heights and distributed to stores. Fabrics designed by the reg/wick studio received national awards and were featured in numerous exhibitions. Some of their most prominent clients included Harold F. Reynolds, Samuel Marx, and Marianne Willisch. The studio was most active between 1945 and 1955, but the partnership between Regensteiner and McVicker continued until 1980.

1945 also marked the beginning of Regensteiner's career as an instructor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). That year, Regensteiner became an assistant professor. While textile courses had been taught at SAIC since the 1920s, there was no department devoted to the field until Regensteiner founded the Weaving Department in 1957 and became a full professor. Regensteiner's methods and philosophy as a professor were closely based on those of her own teacher, Marli Ehrman, which, in turn, had been developed at the Bauhaus. Regensteiner's most noteworthy stylistic innovation was to give the warp sequences (the vertical threads) in her weavings prominence. Weavers trained by Regensteiner include Napoleon Henderson, Jon Riis, Joanna Staniszkis, and many others.

Regensteiner's innovative designs and skills as a teacher made her a popular speaker, and she traveled throughout the United States and in Canada to give lectures and workshops lasting from a few days to several weeks. Her work was included in numerous exhibitions all over the country and she was an active participant in many professional organizations, including the American Crafts Council, the Handweavers Guild of America, and the Industrial Designers Institute. She was a founding member of the Midwest Designer-Craftsmen and Chicago's 57th Street Art Fair. Regensteiner also ran her own weaving study group and participated in other study groups.

At one of her workshops, Regensteiner met Marcella Baumgaertner, who conducted tour groups on trips around the world. Baumgaertner and Regensteiner partnered to create the Weavers Explore program, organizing trips to Europe, South America, and Asia to give groups of weavers the opportunity to study weaving techniques in those areas. Regensteiner's involvement in the program lasted from 1965 to 1971, encompassing four trips.

After her retirement from SAIC in 1971, Regensteiner continued to give workshops and lectures until 1990 and worked from 1972 to 1978 as a consultant at the American Farm School in Thessaloniki, Greece, which she had first visited during a Weavers Explore trip that included a visit to Athens. She assisted the school in expanding and modernizing its weaving department.

Regensteiner published several books and numerous articles on weaving. Her books include The Art of Weaving (1970), Weaver's Study Course: Ideas and Techniques (1975), and Geometric Design in Weaving (1986). Her first two books have gone through several editions.

Regensteiner continued to participate in exhibitions into her eighties. She died in Chicago in 2003, at the age of 96.

This collection documents Else Regensteiner's career as a weaver, textile designer, teacher, and author. Most extensively documented in the collection are Regensteiner's work as a professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago; her workshops, lectures, and exhibitions; her work at the reg/wick studio in partnership with Julia McVicker; her work as a consultant at the American Farm School in Thessaloniki, Greece; and her authorship of articles and books on weaving. The collection includes correspondence; handouts from Regensteiner's courses and workshops; articles and other writings on Regensteiner, her work, and topics related to weaving; professional and personal scrapbooks; photographs; and other materials.

SERIES I: PHOTOGRAPHS AND SLIDES. Arranged into the following subseries: Portraits of Regensteiner, Works of Art, Books, reg/wick Handwoven Originals, Professional and Instructional Activities, and Personal.

SERIES II: GENERAL CORRESPONDENCE. Arranged into the following files: Personal Correspondence (parts 1 and 2); Business Correspondence; Information Requests; Regrets, to and from; Thank You, to and from; Harriet Tidball (to, from, and about); Sister Mary Trinitas (to, from, and about); Sigrid W. Weltge (to and from); and several other files with letters from Weltge containing lectures and articles by Weltge and reviews of her book. Items within files are arranged chronologically. [Note that the majority of the correspondence is located elsewhere in the collection.]

SERIES III: INSTRUCTIONAL PAPERS. Arranged into the following subseries: Hull House, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Evanston Art Center, American Farm School (Thessaloniki, Greece), Recommendations, Workshops and Lectures, and Handouts and Notes.

SERIES IV: PROFESSIONAL PAPERS. Arranged into the following subseries: Professional Histories, Exhibitions, Gifts and Purchases of Regensteiner's Work, Juries, Study Groups, Professional Organizations, Weavers Explore, Subject Files, and Patterns, Notes, and Samples.

SERIES V: REG/WICK HANDWOVEN ORIGINALS RECORDS. Arranged into the following subseries: Awards, Exhibitions, Work Given to the Art Institute of Chicago, Workshops and Lectures, About reg/wick, Julia McVicker Papers, and Miscellaneous.

SERIES VI: PORTFOLIOS. Arranged alphabetically by the last name of the artist.

SERIES VII: PUBLICATIONS. Arranged into the following subseries: Articles, Books, and Sandtner Translation.

SERIES VIII: WRITINGS AND SPEECHES BY OTHERS. Arranged into the following subseries: Publications and Speeches about Regensteiner, Interviews with Regensteiner, Biographical Dictionaries with Entries on Regensteiner, and Articles on Art and Architecture.

SERIES IX: PERSONAL PAPERS. Arranged into the following files: Calendars and schedules, Educational records, Printed materials about the Institute of Design, Correspondence and printed materials about the Bauhaus, Printed materials about Black Mountain College, and Miscellaneous.

SERIES X: SCRAPBOOKS. Arranged into the following subseries: Professional and Personal.

SERIES XI: NEGATIVES. Arranged into the following subseries: Portrait of Regensteiner, Artwork by Regensteiner, Student Exhibition, reg/wick, Books, and Personal.

• Names
  • McVicker, Julia--Archives.
  • Regensteiner, Else, 1906-2003.
• Subject
  • Regensteiner, Else, 1906-2003--Archives.
  • Regensteiner, Else, 1906-2003--Correspondence.
  • Regensteiner, Else, 1906-2003. The Art of Weaving.
  • Regensteiner, Else, 1906-2003. Geometric Design in Weaving.
  • Regensteiner, Else, 1906-2003. Weaver's Study Course.
  • American Farm School (Greece)--History--Sources.
  • Art Institute of Chicago. School--History--Sources.
  • reg/wick Handwoven Originals--History--Sources.
  • Weaving--History--Sources.

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Else Regensteiner papers, 1946-1979 (Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art).

Else Regensteiner papers, 1946-1979 (Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art).

Else Regensteiner papers, 1946-1979 (Smithsonian Institution, Archives of American Art).

Portions of this collection are restricted; wherever possible, surrogate copies are provided for patron use, as noted in the series listings. The remainder of collection may be accessed by users in the Reading Room of the Ryerson and Burnham Libraries at The Art Institute of Chicago. Collections maintained on-site are available for patron use without prior arrangement or appointment. Collections maintained in off-site storage will be retrieved with advance notification; please consult the Archivist for the current retrieval schedule. For further information, consult https://www.artic.edu/archival-collections/contact-usage-and-faq.

The Art Institute of Chicago is providing access to the materials in the Archives’ collections solely for noncommercial educational and research purposes. The unauthorized use, including, but not limited to, publication of the materials without the prior written permission of the Art Institute is strictly prohibited. All inquiries regarding permission to publish should be submitted in writing to the Director, Art Institute of Chicago Archives. In addition to permission from the Art Institute, permission of the copyright owner (if not the Art Institute) and/or any holder of other rights (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) may also be required for reproduction, publication, distribution, and other uses. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of any item and securing any necessary permissions rests with the persons desiring to publish the item. The Art Institute makes no warranties as to the accuracy of the materials or their fitness for a particular purpose.

Else Regensteiner (1906-2003) Collection, Ryerson and Burnham Art and Architecture Archives, The Art Institute of Chicago.

This collection was donated by Helga Sinaiko on July 10, 2004. Additional materials were transferred from the AIC Department of Textiles in September 2018.

This collection was originally processed by Ryerson and Burnham volunteers and staff and was extensively revised and expanded by Valerie Higgins in November and December 2010, and updated by JT de la Torre in October 2018.