DRESDEN.- What do the music-making angels, now a favourite all round the world, have to do with modernism? Do they not seem to represent the opposite: the idyllic world of childish naiveté?

But is this deliberately “childishly genuine view” not a specific achievement of Modernism? It was taught at the School of the Decorative Arts in Dresden at a time when artists were turning away from historicism, seeking out and finding new approaches. At the apogee of this discourse, two young women, Margarete Wendt and Margarete Kühn, began to study design in the first ladies' class at the School of the Decorative Arts, which had just undergone a major expansion. There, they laid the foundations for their worldwide success.

The exhibition follows their previous lessons under the Kleinhempel sisters, their studies under Margarete Junge, their fellow students and colleagues, and the connections they forged early on to the German Workshops in Hellerau, the German Werkbund craftsmen's association and the newly founded Sächsischer Heimatschutz heritage association.

Previously unrevealed documents, drawings and figures from the company's early years show the initially wide artistic range of Margarete Wendt and Margarete Kühn's designs, extending from grave crosses, small items of furniture, dolls' houses and toys from the progressive education movement to smoking accessories and “knick-knacks” for the modern young woman. It was only over time that the striking children, angels and Christmas figures developed into what is still the successful emblem of Wendt & Kühn.

This exhibition, marking 100 years since the company's foundation, is based on several years of research work on the Wendt & Kühn archives, which are today still in productive use.