Eberhard Schrammen, “Maskottchen (Mascot)” (c. 1924), in “Bauhaus 1919-1933” at MoMA. Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin Photo: Gunter Lepkowski © Estate Eberhard Schrammen
Complementing the Maholy-Nagy exhibition in Frankfurt showing at Shirn Kunsthalle through February 7, 2010, New York’s Museum of Modern Art is celebrating the early-20th century Bauhaus collective in a show which runs in the Joan and Preston Robert Tisch Gallery through January 25, 2010. This presentation of the highly influential German school comprises 400 works, many of which have never before been exhibited publicly in the United States. Drawn from both private and public collections, including 80 works from MoMA’s holdings, the show also features 150 pieces from the three German Bauhaus collections, Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, and Klassik Stiftung Weimar. The exhibition comes to MoMA after an earlier version at Berlin’s Martin-Gropius Bau, which showed from July 22 to October 4, 2009.
Vasily Kandinsky, “Schwarze Form (Black form)” (1923), via MoMA. Private collection. Courtesy Neue Galerie New York. Photo: Jeffrey Sturges © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
more images and story after the jump…
Lucia Moholy, “Untitled (George Muche” (1927-28), at MoMA. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell. Copy photograph © The Metropolitan Museum of Art © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
T. Lux Feininger, “Untitled (Clems Röseler)” (c. 1928), at MoMA. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell. Copy photograph © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
“Bauhaus 1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity” is MoMA’s most comprehensive treatment of the Bauhaus school since 1938. It is organized in loose chronological order, following the Bauhaus as it changes under three directorships and in three locations. In 1925, Bauhaus was forced out of Weimar, the city where it was founded, by local political opposition. It settled in Dessau, closed in 1932 by a National-Socialist local government, and grasped for a last year in an abandoned factory in Berlin. Three architectural minds spearheaded the discussion of concepts as they are manifest in diverse media: Walter Gropius, from 1919-1928; Hannes Meyer, from 1928-1930; and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, from 1930-1933.
Lucia Moholy, “Franz Roh” (1926-28), at MoMA. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Warner Communications, Inc., Purchase Fund Copy photograph © The Metropolitan Museum of Art © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Lucia Moholy, “László Moholy-Nagy” (1925-28), at MoMA. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell
Copy photograph © The Metropolitan Museum of Art © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
László Moholy-Nagy, “Untitled” (1928), at MoMA. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell. Copy photograph © The Metropolitan Museum of Art © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
László Moholy-Nagy, “Untitled (Decorating work, Switzerland)” (1925), at MoMA. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Gilman Collection, Purchase, Robert Rosenkranz Gift. Copy photograph © The Metropolitan Museum of Art © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
László Moholy-Nagy, “Lichtrequisit einer Elektrischen Bühne (Light prop for an electric stage)” (1930), at MoMA. Harvard Art Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum. Gift of Sibyl Moholy-Nagy. Photo: Junius Beebe © President and Fellows of Harvard College © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Such interdisciplinary focus is borne out by the MoMA show, which includes block textiles, furniture, paintings, photography, and installation. Here is the photography of Lucia Moholy — note especially her lovely and irreverent portrait of her husband, and her husband’s work in gesticulation and illusion, above.  Function is glorified, or art and function are conflated, in the textiles of Gunta Stölzl and Anni Albers, the furniture by Marcel Breuer, and the occasional chair by Josef Albers. Prevalent among many of the works featured — Josef Albers’s glasswork, his wife’s tapestries, and her teacher’s weaving — is a love of the cube, the square, and the rigidities they imply and subvert. Albers’s glassworks, particularly, are sometimes fuller of color and fuller of space, framed and bound. Paul Klee’s painted squares comprise each other.
Paul Klee, “Maibild (May Picture)” (1925), at MoMA. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. The Berggruen Klee Collection. Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Paul Klee, “Fire in the Evening” (1929), at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Joachim Jean Aberbach Fund © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Kurt Kranz, “Untitled picture series (Project for an abstract colored film” (1930) at MoMA. Kunsthalle Bielefeld © Estate Kurt Kranz
Josef Albers, “Scherbe ins Gitterbild (Glass fragments in grid picture)” (c. 1921), at MoMA. Albers Foundation/Art Resource, NY. Photo: Tim Nighswander © 2009 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Josef Albers, “Gitterbild (Lattice picture, also known as Grid mounted)” (c. 1921), at MoMA. Albers Foundation/Art Resource, NY. Photo: Tim Nighswander © 2009 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Josef Albers, “Park” (1924), at MoMA. Albers Foundation/Art Resource, NY. Photo: Tim Nighswander © 2009 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Josef Albers, “Goldrosa” (1926), at MoMA. Albers Foundation/Art Resource, NY. Photo: Tim Nighswander © 2009 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Josef Albers, “Skyscrapers on Transparent Yellow” (c. 1929), at MoMA. Albers Foundation/Art Resource, NY. Photo: Tim Nighswander © 2009 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Josef Albers, “Set of Stacking Tables” (c. 1927), at MoMA. Albers Foundation/Art Resource, NY. Photo: Tim Nighswander © 2009 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Marcel Breuer’s “African” or “Romantic” chair, with textile by Gunta Stölzl (1921), at MoMA. Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin. Acquired with funds provided by Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung. Photo: Hartwig Klappert
Gunta Stölzl, “Tapestry” (1922-23), at MoMA. Harvard Art Museum, Busch-Reisinger Museum. Association Fund. Photo: Michael A. Nedzweski © President and Fellows of Harvard College
© 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn
Anni Albers, “Wall hanging” (1925), at MoMA. Die Neue Sammlung – The International Design Museum Munich. Photo: Archive Die Neue Sammlung © 2009 The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
– R. Fogel
Related links:
Museum of Modern Art
Bauhaus. A Conceptual Model. Martin-Gropius-Bau
