Bauhaus

An accessible history of the Bauhaus, tracing the ideas behind its conception and its highly influential teaching methods.

The aesthetic of our contemporary environment, including everything from housing developments to furniture and websites, is partly the result of a school of art and design founded in Germany in 1919, the Bauhaus. While in operation for only fourteen years before being shut down by the Nazis in 1933, the school left an indelible mark on design as well as the practice of art education throughout the world.

Placing the Bauhaus into its socio-historic context, Frank Whitford traces the ideas behind the school’s conception and describes its teaching methods. He examines the activities of the teachers, who included artists as eminent as Paul Klee, Josef Albers and Wassily Kandinsky, and the daily lives of the students. This remains the most accessible and highly illustrated introduction to perhaps the most significant design movement of the last hundred years.

About the Author:

Frank Whitford was an art historian and critic, and one of Britain’s leading experts on 20th-century German and Austrian art. During his varied career, he lectured on the history of art at University College London and Homerton College, Cambridge, wrote several books and served as a newspaper art critic. From 1983 onwards he was a senior member of Wolfson College, Cambridge.

Contents List:

Introduction • 1. Aims and Ambitions • 2. Art, Crafts, Architecture and the Academies 3. Art Education Reformed • 4. The Founder • 5. Problems • 6. The First Appointments 7. The Students • 8. Achievements • 9. New Arrivals • 10. The Basic Course: Colour and Form • 11. Going Dutch • 12. Towards a New Unity: Moholy-Nagy and Albers • 13. The Public Face • 14. Dessau • 15. Young Masters • 16. A New Director • 17. The Bitter End 18. Judgments