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Moholy-Nagy/Feininger
House from the southeast
Photo: Willi Römer ©
Bildarchiv Preusischer Kurturbesitz |
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The Bauhaus Society and its Guests
Klee confirmed in a statement in 1921 that "different strengths"
were at work in the Bauhaus and there were "struggles between
them" and it came to friction about their achievements during
their time in Dessau. Gropius' maxim of "paving the way towards
industrialisation" did not mean the one-sided withdrawal of the
individual from differing concepts of art, design or life. After Gropius'
departure it was increasingly difficult to keep the spectrum of the
strengths at the Bauhaus in balance. Neither the politicisation under
Hannes Meyer nor the specialist rational architecture of Ludwig Mies
van der Rohe could manage to unite the "differently directed
strengths" (Klee). It was clear that all this tension must also
play a role in the Masters' Houses Estate where family life, contact
with differing personalities and work were all so closely woven together.The
Masters' Houses were not just places to enjoy a bourgeois family life.
Within a few years high ranking artistic work, especially paintings,
came from their ateliers. It was especially the painters and drawers
of the Bauhaus, Kandinsky, Klee, Moholy-Nagy, Feininger and Schlemmer
and Albers, that pursued their work in the ateliers. Some of the Masters'
Houses also became the studios for the free painting classes. There
was also the painter Julia Feininger as well as the concert pianist
Lily Klee. Lou Scheper worked as a colour designer, Gertrud Arndt
designed textiles, Lucia Moholy was the most important Bauhaus photographer
of the time and Anni Albers as well as Gunta Stölzl were first
class textile designers.Many political, artistic, academic and business
personalities culminated their visits to the Bauhaus by making their
way to the Masters' Houses. There was a good relationship with the
most important local personages from the mayor Fritz Hesse and the
state curator Ludwig Grote, to the musicians and theatrical people
Franz von Hoesslin and Franz Hartmann to the visits from Junkers engineers
and businessmen. In addition an illustrious circle of people visited
the Bauhaus and the Masters' Houses whose names read like an international
Who's Who of the 20th century. Amongst these can be counted the authors
Ilja Ehrenburg and Tadeusz Peiper, the dancer Gret Palucca, the artists
Kasimir Malewitsch, Paul Gleizes, El Lissitzky, Naum Gabo, Amadée
Ozenfant, George Grosz, Marcel Duchamp, Alfred Kubin, the art historians
Adolf Behne, Walter Dexel, Will Grohmann, Sigfried Giedion, Rudolf
Arnheim, Alois J. Schardt and Lu Märten, the art dealer Albert
Flechtheim, the art teacher Hans Friedrich Geist, the architects Cornelius
van der Vlugt, Bruno and Max Taut, Rudolf Häring, Gustav Schneck,
Otto Häsler, Rudolf Bartning, Hendrik Petrus Berlage, Erich Mendelsohn,
Arkadi Grigorewitsch Mordwinow, Max Berg, the psychologist Hans Prinzhorn,
the philosopher Otto Neurath, the film maker Dsiga Werthoff, the musicians
Bela Bartok, Paul Hindemith, the conductor Leopold Stokowski, the
chemist and colour theorist Wilhelm Ostwald.
"1933 to today"
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