XANTI SCHAWINSKY
MALEREI, BUHNE, GRAFIKDESIGN, FOTOGRAFIE
Peter Hahn [foreword]
Peter Hahn [foreword]: XANTI SCHAWINSKY: MALEREI, BUHNE, GRAFIKDESIGN, FOTOGRAFIE. Berlin: Bauhaus Archiv, 1986. First edition. text in German. Square quarto. White paper covered boards titled in black. Photo illustrated dust jacket. 221 pp. 206 color and black and white plates. Black and white text illustrations. Glossy white jacket slightly dulled, but a nearly fine copy in a nearly fine dust jacket.
9.5 x 9 hardcover book with 221 pages and 206 color and black and white plates and multiple text illustrations. Lavish catalog for the exhibition at the Bauhaus Archiv from March 22 to May 19, 1986. The most inclusive work on the enigmatic Xanti yet published. Essential.
- Vorvort: Peter Hahn
- Biografie: Barbara Paul
- Schawinsky—Probleme, Experimente, Werke: Hans Heinz Holz
- Schawinsky und das Theater: Dirk Scheper
- Schawinsky als Fotograf und Grafikdesigner: Vittorio Fagone
- Katalog der Ausgestellten Werke: Barbara Paul
- Ausgewählte Dokumente und Schirften: Barbara Paul
- Ausstellungen
- Bibliografie
- Verzeichnis der Abgekürtz Zitierten Literatur
Alexander “Xanti” Schawinsky (1904, Basel – 1979, Locarno) is usually known either for the activities of his early career, as a young ‘enfant terrible’ of Bauhaus theatre, or for the work he produced at its close as a respected and mature abstract artist. However these two perspectives ignore his tremendous versatility, and the important role he had to play in bringing Modernist ideas to different parts of the inter-war world.
Schawinsky was born in Switzerland, the son of a Polish Jew. His creative nature was obvious from an early age, and in his teens he studied art and music in Zurich, before travelling to Berlin and Cologne to learn about design and architecture. In 1924 he enrolled at the Bauhaus, and became involved in the school’s vibrant theatrical scene, also focusing on photography and painting. From the mid 1920s Schawinsky undertook wide range of professional commissions, working as a stage designer, a municipal studio director and a freelance designer. He also returned to the Bauhaus to teach.
In 1933 Germany’s growing intolerance forced him to move to Milan, where he spent several years producing commercial graphic design in association with Studio Boggeri. An invitation to join the progressive Black Mountain College brought him to the USA in 1936. He spent two years at Black Mountain introducing Bauhaus ideas to his American students, before moving to New York to take up freelance design and pursue painting – an activity which absorbed almost all of his attention in his final years. As innovative in commercial art as he was in his unpaid pieces, Schawinsky’s work demonstrated the huge creative power of the inter-war meeting of art and industry.