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Artist: Marta Erps Breuer (1902-1977).

Recipient:  Hans und Wanda Clemens

Date: 1921

Sheet size: 84 mm x 71 mm

Block size: 74 mm x 62 mm

Paper type: Original ink drawing on laid paper.

Condition: Good original condition. (see photos).

Signed / Monogramed: Initialled and dated in pencil to lower right corner.

Comments:

Marta Magdalena Elisabeth Erps was born to Friedrich A.M. Erps and Auguste Mathilde J. Erps on September 29^th 1902 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. From 1921 until 1924, she attended classes at the Bauhaus as student and master-student of Georg Muche . His influence is clearly recognizable in this drawing, (especially of his famous Ypsilon suite of 1920). Founded originally in Weimar in 1919, the Bauhaus school was later (1925) transferred to Dessau, and then to Berlin (1932), where it was unfortunately closed forever the following year, when Hitler and the Nazis came to political power. The Bauhaus' legacy and its role in the evolution of techniques and ideas has long been recognized worldwide. During those times, Marta and her professor, the German architect Walter Gropius (founder of the Bauhaus), became good friends. She was also on good terms with other famous Bauhaus members such as Herbert Bayer, Andreas Feininger and Wassily Kandinsky. In 1924 went to Paris, where she married (on August 14^th, 1926) Marcel Lajos Breuer (1902-1981), a colleague of hers at Bauhaus. He would become one of the most influential architects and furniture designers of the 20^th century.

A few years later Marta Breuer decided to move to Brazil, (and Marcel Breuer moved to the United States where he became a professor at The Harvard University). Whilst working at the Escola Paulista de Medicina (currently Universidade Federal de São Paulo), Martha met Mr. Milton Grellet, then a student, who became her great friend. During this and the subsequent periods, besides tapestry and woodcarving, she made sculptures and paintings, although nobody but her close friends had the privilege to admire those works of art, which she kept at her home. Unfortunately, the whereabouts of the majority of those pieces are unknown.

On February 1^st, 1935, by indication of Prof. Dreyfus, she was hired as a lab technician in the Science section of the newly-founded Faculdade de Filosofia, Ciências e Letras of the Universidade de São Paulo, then located on the third floor of the Faculdade de Medicina, on Avenida Dr. Arnaldo.

In March 1936, funded by her family, she returned to Europe for a 6-month period, to study histological preparations and in tissue culturing. On returning back to Brazil, Marta Breuer became a permanent partner of Prof. André Dreyfus until he prematurely died, aged 54, on February 16^th, 1952. Martha Breur aparently had a great technical ability, creativity, accurate observation, dedication and research interests. In addition, her sensitivity and ability to reproduce the observed microworld in China ink drawings (as shown in this drawing for an exlibris) made her an exceptional technician and scientist. The archives of the Departamento de Genética e Biologia Evolutiva keep a wood-carved Drosophila melanogaster model constructed by Marta Breuer in 1959. Today most of Martha's scientific papers are stored at the Bauhaus - Archiv Museum für Gestaltung in Berlin.