The Klostergalerie announces a memorial exhibition of works by Kat von Stenglin (1956–2026), featuring a selection of her textile pieces. The exhibition will open on [date] and remain on view until [date].
Kat von Stenglin's connection to this place was not incidental. Born in Halle, she carried the landscapes of the Saale-Unstrut region throughout her life—the vineyards, the estates, the slow-moving river. These were not mere memories but formative impressions. When she later settled in Mecklenburg, those early years remained present in her work.
The exhibition at Kloster Zscheiplitz thus represents a return. Her tapestries find themselves once again in the landscape that shaped her visual language.
The Work
Von Stenglin worked in the Gobelin tradition—wool on linen, woven on a high-warp loom. This is an old discipline, one that demands patience, precision, and a deep understanding of material. She did not treat it as a craft to be preserved or decorated. She brought it into the present with formal intelligence and quiet conviction.
Her tapestries are not textiles in the decorative sense. They are woven images: rhythmically structured, present in their tactility, carried by a stillness that cannot be forced. Mathematical order and chromatic discipline do not compete here; they converge. The square, the shifting of small units, optical movement, black and white, red, and the rich tones of naturally dyed wool—this was her vocabulary.
Von Stenglin's decades of experience in both weaving and plant dyeing shaped a working method in which design, material, and execution were inseparable. Images first formed in the mind, then on paper, only then at the loom. This sequence was not incidental. It was principle.
The Artist
On the Eichenhof in Picher, together with her husband, ceramist Alexander von Stenglin, she created a place that was workshop and home, gallery and lived artistic practice. Since 1986, the farmstead grew into a singular center for ceramics and textile art in Mecklenburg—remote, independent, indifferent to fashion.
Her works were shown in Ahrenshoop, Wiesbaden, Schwerin, Bothmer, Testorf, and Berlin. They were valued by galleries, collectors, and those with a discerning eye for textile art.
More important than any list is what endures: a clarity that does not impose itself; a beauty that has substance.
A Last Circle
That this exhibition became her final solo show during her lifetime gives the encounter a particular significance. Her work returned once more to the landscape of her youth—to the Saale-Unstrut region that was not merely her origin but her formation. What began in Roßbach and Kreipitzsch as memory, as looking, as a way of being, found its late, quiet circle in Zscheiplitz.
The Klostergalerie will continue to represent Kat von Stenglin's work. To keep it visible, to preserve it, to carry her artistic legacy forward with care—this we understand as both obligation and honour.
Her death closes a life. It does not close the effect of her art.
That remains:
in the weaves,
in the colours,
in the rigour of form,
in the warmth of the material,
in that quiet order that makes her works unmistakable;
and also in the landscape—
in the curves of the Unstrut,
in the gentle rise of hills and vineyards.
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Visit and Information
Opening hours: Friday to Sunday, 11 am to 6 pm
Viewings during the week — for groups as well as individual visitors — are possible by prior arrangement. Please direct your inquiry to: von.hahn@me.com
The price list for the exhibited works is available for inspection at the gallery.