Charles Crodel (September 16, 1894 - November 11, 1973) was a German painter and stained glass artist who also taught at Penn State University and the University of Louisville. Born in Marseille, he studied arts at the University of Jena, while he became painter and lithographer. He was member of the executive board of the Jena art-union, the famous forum of the Bauhaus, and became a close friend of Gerhard Marcks. In 1923 the German National Gallery of Art at Berlin and later the Bibliothèque Nationale at Paris bought first his woodcuts and lithographies. A mural in the University of Jena, another in the Weimar Schlossmuseum and a third in Erfurt remain of that time.
From 1927 on Crodel taught printing and monumental painting at the "Burg Giebichenstein", the Academy of Arts and Crafts in Halle until 1933 when he was dismissed, and all of his murals there and the murals dedicated to Goethe in 1932 at Bad Lauchstädt were destroyed in summer 1933 and in 1936. At this time many refugees brought Crodels paintings and prints, which now are found at Louisville, The North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, the Virginia Museum of Arts and the Luther College, Decorah.
The following years Crodel found new fields of work. He designed glass decoration in Industry (together with Wilhelm Wagenfeld), and he explored pottery decoration together with Hedwig Bollhagen, while Elisabeth Crodel completed embroidery. He also began to paint stained-glass and to design mosaics.
In 1945 Crodel again taught at Halle, but also at Berlin and Dresden, and from 1951 at the Bavarian State Academy of Fine Arts in Munich. From 1958 on Crodel also several times was invited to the Pennstate and Louisville Universities.
Crodels stained-glass windows are found in Germany and in Sweden. Beautiful examples are found in the Frankfurt city churches, in Berlin, Erfurt and Hamburg.
Coming from a session of the Berlin Academy of Arts, Crodel died in 1973 in Munich.
