Leipzig is a city of a great fair tradition. In the 1920s the former director of the arts and crafts museum Leipzig, Richard Graul, founded a sales fair which later became known as the Grassimesse. Compared with the bigger Leipzig-fair, which offered mass-produced articles, the Grassimesse instisted on high quality. The former museum administration demanded a rigorous selection procedure of the artists. Therefore the Grassimesse developed to a famous European stage for the craftspeople elite. Up until the last Grassimesse in 1956, more than 1500 craftsmen, designers, companies, art schools and artist’s associations from Germany, Austria and Scandinavia presented their wares to an international audience. Important participants for example artists from Bauhaus and Wiener Werkstätte were representative of the development of the applied arts between the 1920s and the beginning of the 1940s. Taking part in the Grassimesse was like being awarded and of course this also applied to the exposed objects. Many of them became part of the museums collection as a kind of “archive of Modernity”.
Offering of the Copenhagen Porcelain
company Bing & Gröndal, Grassimesse, Spring 1931
Offering of the Uffrecht Fayence company,
Grassimesse Spring 1929
Stand of Villeroy & Boch company,
Grassimesse Spring 1935
Door handles of the Otto Seyffart company,
Grassimesse 1930
Stand of the United Glass companies of Lausitz,
Grassimesse Spring 1936
Desk lamps of the Austrian Work Federation,
Grassimesse Spring 1929
Stand of the Hablik-Lindemann factory (Itzehoe),
Grassimesse Autumn 1928
Exhibition area of the Wiener Werkstätte,
Grassimesse Spring 1929
Exhibition area of the Bavarian Crafts Association,
Grassimesse Spring 1929
Offering of the Uffrecht Fayence company,
Grassimesse Spring 1929