Our Company – Facts and Figures

The legacy of company founder Grete Wendt and designer Olly Wendt, née Sommer, has been preserved through the decades with careful continued development and contemporary interpretation. The company is still managed by descendants of the Wendt family today.

• 175 Employees
• Family-owned for 3 generations
• 500 Authorized specialty retailers in Germany
• Exports to142 retailers in 20 countries worldwide

• Production in 5 master workshops, exclusively at the Grünhainichen site
• 2 Experience Centers: World of Figurines (Seiffen, Germany) and World of Wendt & Kühn (Grünhainichen, Germany)

1915
The partnership “M. Wendt & M. Kühn” is founded on October 1st. Among the first products are angels holding candles, wooden chests, turned boxes, and candelabras.

1916
A half-timbered house in Grünhainichen is purchased and extended to serve as the headquarters of the company.

1920
Olly Sommer joins Wendt & Kühn and subsequently becomes an influential designer alongside Grete Wendt.

1923
Grete Wendt designs the first three Grünhainichen Angels®.

1925
On February 2, 1925, designer Olly Sommer, later Wendt, put pen to paper and sketched the first filigree Marguerite Angel in a white dress, with delicate feather wings and a marguerite wreath in its hair.

1937
The Angel Mountain with Madonna is awarded a gold medal and the Grand Prix at the Paris World Exhibition.

1972
Wendt & Kühn is compulsorily nationalized and renamed “VEB Werk-Kunst”. Hans Wendt is appointed Works Director. Grete Wendt leaves the manufactory after working there for 57 years. Despite the trend towards mass production stipulated by the command economy in GDR, Hans Wendt manages to preserve the character of the products.

1990
After the reunification of the two german states
Wendt & Kühn is reprivatized. As managing partner Hans Wendt ensures that Wendt & Kühn KG gets off to a successful new beginning.

2005
The first edition of Wendt & Kühn’s customer magazine “eleven dot post” is published.

2015
Wendt & Kühn celebrates its 100^th anniversary and opens the World of Wendt & Kühn at its original headquarters in Grünhainichen.

2023
Wendt & Kühn celebrates the 100th birthday of the Eleven Dot Angels.

As part of the “Tradition & Form” design competition run by the Verband Erzgebirgischer Kunsthandwerker und Spielzeughersteller e. V. (Association of Erzgebirge Craftsmen and Toymakers), Grete Wendt is posthumously honored for her life’s work and her outstanding contribution to craftsmanship in the Erzgebirge.

2024
For the first time Wendt & Kühn designs an Eleven Dot Angel with multi-colored dots to  support projects run by the World Childhood Foundation Germany. The charity was founded in 1999 by Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden and celebrates its 25th anniversary in 2024.

2025
Wendt & Kühn celebrates the 100th birthday of the Marguerite Angels.