Object lessons: the Bauhaus and Harvard

Abstract

A fresh look at the influential pedagogy and practice pioneered by the Bauhaus. Founded by architect Walter Gropius (1883-1969) in 1919, the Bauhaus was the 20th century's most influential school of art, architecture, and design. After the school was shuttered under pressure from the Nazis in 1933, many Bauhaus artists brought their innovative practices and teaching methods to the United States. Gropius himself accepted a position at Harvard, where he would help establish a collection of Bauhaus material that has since grown to more than 30,000 objects-the largest such collection outside Germany. Harvard in turn became an unofficial center for the Bauhaus in America. Written by established and emerging voices in the field, the scholarship presented here expands on the special link between the two institutions, while highlighting understudied aspects of the Bauhaus, such as weaving, photography, and art made by women. Accompanied by beautiful illustrations-some of never-before-published objects-this book yields fascinating insights for Bauhaus devotees and design aficionados.

Contents

"The center for Bauhaus material in America": exhibiting the Bauhaus at Harvard, 1930-2019 / Laura Muir -- Goethe at the Bauhaus: Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack's color charts / Melissa Venator -- Nature's forms in perpetual motion: notes on film screenings at the Bauhaus / Laura A. Frahm -- Preliminary objects for modern subjects: László Moholy-Nagy's Bauhaus theory and Lucia Moholy's photographic representation / Robin Schuldenfrei -- Mass media, gender, and colonialism: the Weimar photomontages of Marianne Brandt and Hannah Höch / Kristie La -- Otti Berger's Bauhaus picture book / Annie Bourneuf -- Drawing lessons: Ruth Asawa's early work on paper / Jordan Troeller -- A lesson in longevity: conserving Bauhaus-inspired student exercises from Newcomb College / Susan D. Costello, Madeline Corona, Georgina Rayner, and Katherine Eremin -- America: Josef Albers's brick relief at Harvard / Jeffrey Saletnik -- To break the wall: Herbert Bayer's Harvard murals / Robert Wiesenberger -- Lifting the veil from Verdure / Kate Smith and Teri Hensick -- Returning to Materiestudien: workshops in the materials lab / Fritz Horstman and Francesca G. Bewer -- Unidentified artist: exploring the Bauhaus through an exhibition, an art practice, and the classroom / Katarina Burin.