BAUHAUS 1919 – 1969
[50 Years Bauhaus German Exhibition]
Herbert Bayer [Designer]
Herbert Bayer [Designer]: BAUHAUS 1919 – 1969 [50 Years Bauhaus German Exhibition]. Paris: Musée National d’Art Moderne, April 1969. Original edition [originally prepared for the Institut fur Auslandsbeziehungen Stuttgart, 1968]. Text in French. Square quarto. Gray card boards. Printed dust jacket. Multiple paper stocks. 360 pp. Fully illustrated in color and black and white. Checklist of 1,478 items. Canadian 28-page supplement included. Book design and typography by Herbert Bayer assisted by Karl-Georg Bitterberg and Hans-Peter Hoch. Wrappers worn and rubbed. Mild yellowing to textblock edges [as usual], so a very good copy of this comprehensive exhibition catalog.
8.5 x 8.75 soft cover catalog with 360 pages and approximately 650 color and black and white illustrations selected from the Bauhaus Archiv documenting the output of the Bauhaus from Weimar to Dessau to Berlin. Catalog design by Herbert Bayer distinguished by his absolute abolition of the Upper Case letter. Includes introductory essays by Ludwig Grote, Walter Gropius, Heinz Winfried Sabais, Otto Stelzer, Hans Eckstein, Nikolaus Pevsner, Jurgen Joedicke, Will Grohmann and Hans M. Wingler.
Contents
- preliminary course and teaching: includes Iteen, Moholy-Nagy, Albers, Schlemmer, Hirschfield-Mack, Klee and Schmidt
- workshops: includes Teaching on Architecture, Sculpture, Stage, Stained Glass, Photography, Metal, Carpentry, Pottery, Typography, Mural Painting and Weaving
- architecture and design: includes Gropius, Hannes Meyer, Mies van der Rohe, Hilberseimer, Brenner, Heiberg, A. Mayer, Stam Wittwer, Arndt, Bayer and Breuer
- painting, sculpture, graphics: includes Josef Albers, Arndt, Bayer, Feininger, Itten, Kandinsky, Klee, Marcks, Moholy-Nagy, Muche, Schlemmer, etc.
- life at the bauhaus
- continuation of the teaching
- biographies, bibliographies, index
Includes work by Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, Ludwig Mies Van Der Rohe, Gunta Stolzl, Joost Schmidt, Oskar Schlemmer, Walter Peterhans, Georg Muche, Lilly Reich, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Hannes Meyer, Gerhard Marcks, Johannes Itten, Ludwig Hilberseimer, Wassily Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger, Alfred Arndt, Josef Albers, Marianne Brandt, Herbert Bayer, Josef Hartwig, Wilhelm Wagenfeld, Christian Dell, Otto Lindig, Theodor Bogler and many others.
Includes references to all aspects of the Bauhuas, including: Itten's Preliminary Course, Klee's Course, Kandinsky's Course, Color Experiments, Carpentry Workshop, Stained Glass Workshop, Pottery Workshop, Metal Workshop, Weaving Workshop, Stage Workshop, Wall Painting Workshop, Display Design, Architecture, Typography and Layout; the Bauhaus Press, the Weimar Exhibition, 1923, Moholy-Nagy's Preliminary Course, Albers' Preliminary Course, Bauhaus Building, The Masters' Houses, Other Buildings in Dessau, Architecture Department, Weaving Workshop, Typography Workshop: Printing, layout, posters, Photography, Exhibition Technique, Wall Painting Workshop: Wall paper, Sculpture Workshop, Stage Workshop, Extracurricular Activities, Spread of the Bauhaus Idea, Bauhaus Teaching in the United States and much more.
Of all the artists to pass through the Bauhaus, none lived the Bauhaus ideal of total integration of the arts into life like Herbert Bayer (1900 - 1985). He was a graphic designer, typographer, photographer, painter, environmental designer, sculptor and exhibition designer. He entered the Bauhaus in 1921 and was greatly influenced by Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy and El Lissitzky. He left in 1923, but returned in 1925 to become a master in the school. During his tenure as a Bauhaus master he produced many designs that became standards of a Bauhaus "style." Bayer was instrumental in moving the Bauhaus to purely sans serif usage in all its work. In 1928 he left the Bauhaus to work in Berlin. He primarily worked as a designer and art director for the Dorland Agency, an international firm. During his years at Dorland a Bayer style was established. Bayer emigrated to the United States in 1938 and set up practice in New York. His US design included work for NW Ayers, consultant art director for J. Walter Thompson and design work for GE. From 1946 on he worked exclusively for Container Corporation of America (CCA) and the Atlantic Richfield Corporation. In 1946 he moved to Aspen to become design consultant to CCA. In 1956 he became chairman of the department of design, a position he held until 1965. He was awarded the AIGA medal in 1970. Bayer's late work included work for ARCO and many personal projects including several environmental designs.