Trude Jalowetz Guermonprez (1910 - 1976) was a brilliant weaver, fibers artist, and educator. Guermonprez’ work with fabrics were connected to, and influenced by the human experience. Her work is exemplary of her own deep understanding and experience with textiles. Her weavings act as evidence of her deep connection to the medium. As a student of Benita Otte from Bauhaus, Guermonprez graduated from the Textile Engineering School in Berlin, Germany in 1933. From Germany to Scandinavia to Holland, Guermonprez worked and traveled, sharing her skill by educating others while learning from her colleges. Daughter of artists, she accompanied her parents to the United States, who were faculty members at Black Mountain College from the beginning in 1933. Guermonprez moved to Black Mountain College and became an instructor in the weaving department around 1945 after her husband tragically died.There Guermonprez was named “creative above all else,” as creativity defined her personality. Guermonprez met and married her late husband, John Elsesser. After leaving Black Mountain College in 1949 when the weaving program dissolved, she worked as chair of the craft department at California College of Arts and Crafts in 1960 and continued to teach at the institution for seventeen years. She received the American Institute of Architects’ Craftsman’s Award in 1970 for her work, which prompted her work to be shown in an exhibition after her death at the Oakland Museum of California in 1982. This show was the only time her work was shown. Guermonprez’s influences on the craft made an impact on further developing and connecting weaving to its modern state of contemporary expression of design with fibers.