Edda Ströbel

Edda Ströbel, born in Osorno in 1929—a city in southern Chile marked by German immigration at the end of the nineteenth century—was trained in Interior Decoration and Metal Enameling at the School of Applied Arts of the University of Chile, located in Santiago, the country’s capital. This education enabled her to obtain a scholarship to continue her studies in Germany.

Between April and August 1957, she attended the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg, where she joined the metal workshop under the mentorship of Professor Wolfgang Tümpel. Subsequently, and upon his recommendation, she continued her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich between November 1957 and March 1958.¹

In 1958, she returned to Chile and began teaching an introductory course in jewelry ad honorem at the School of Applied Arts, the same institution where she had received her initial training.² The School played a central role in the effort to bring art closer to everyday life, based on the premise that “the artist’s contact with the workshop signifies, beyond a technical achievement or a new aesthetic contribution, the fulfillment of art’s social duty, radiating its will toward beauty even into the everyday utensil.”³ This institutional context situates Ströbel’s work within a mode of practice that closely links art to daily life, framing the applied arts as a form of artistic craftsmanship integrated into everyday use and the public sphere. Within this understanding, artistic value is not limited to singular works of art but extends to objects and practices that are embedded in social life. This perspective was shaped within the pedagogical framework of the School of Applied Arts, which would later evolve into the School of Design at the University of Chile.⁴

Alongside her artistic and pedagogical work, Ströbel later assumed an administrative role within the School of Applied Arts, further consolidating her involvement in the institutional development of this area ⁵

Edda Ströbel passed away in Chile in 2014.