Hedwig Grossman Lehmann

Hedwig Grossman Lehmann was born in 1902 in Berlin

Hedwig Grossman was born in Berlin in 1902 to a secular, assimilated Jewish family. As a child she joined the German youth movement Wandervogel, then moved to the Zionist youth movement Blau-Weiss. In 1925 she was chosen as a WIZO delegate to the Zionist Congress in Vienna.

She studied art, sculpture and ceramics in Berlin, and later attended the professional ceramics school in Bolesławiec and the art school in Halle. In Bolesławiec she studied the chemistry of pottery and tested clay from the Land of Israel. In 1930 she opened a pottery workshop in Berlin.

She immigrated to the Land of Israel with her husband, Rudi Lehmann, and settled near Haifa. She worked to set up a flower pot factory at Kibbutz Yagur, and in 1937 the couple moved to Jerusalem, where they built a wood-fired kiln inspired by Arab potters. Her work used local clays and natural colors and drew on archaeological finds.

In 1953 the couple helped found the artists' village of Ein Hod, and in 1959 they moved to Givatayim and founded a municipal art school. In the early 1950s she also began making woodcuts. Her book on ceramics was published in 1972, and she died in 1998.