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Photography and the Bauhaus

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Photography and the Bauhaus CENTER FOR CREATIVEe PHOTOGRAPHY• UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA RESEARCH SERIES NUMBER 21 MARCH 1985 PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE BAUHAUS Contents Director's Statement by James Enyeart 3 Photography and the Bauhaus by Suzanne E. Pastor 4 Bauhaus Portfolio 27 Acquisitions: January-June 1983 compiled by Sharon Denton Frot11 the Archives: 56 Hans Richter's Fi/111st11die, 1926 62 The Center for Creative Photography is a research museum devoted to twcnri�th-century photography. Among its extensive collections arc complete archives of photographers who have made significant and creative contributions to the field. Each issue of the Center's research series, Tl,e Arcl,ii,e, is drawn from its extensive collections of photographs, manuscripts, and negatives; most issues include a plate section of facsimile reproductions. Subscribers to Tl"' Arcl,i11e also receive announcements of coming exhibition,, and copies of the Center's collection guide and bibliography series as they appear. Sub­ scriptions mailed within the United States an: S25 for four issues of Tl,e A.-chi,,e; foreign mailings arc S35. This represents a substantial discount from single copy rates, usually one-third to one-half price. To subscribe, send your check or money order to: Subscriptions, Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, 8-D E. University l3lvd., Tucson, Arizona 85719. Center for Creative Photography University of Arizona Copyright© 1985 Arizona Board of Regents All Rights Reserved Designed by Nancy Solomon Bembo Typography by Tiger Typographies Printed by Fabe Litho Ltd. Bound by Roswell Bookbinding The Archive, Research Series, of the Center for Creative Photography is supported in part by the Polaroid Corporation and the National Endowment for the Arts Photographs from the Center's collections are indicated by an accession number. The photographs in the plate section are taken from the Center's Bauhaus Collection, while the text illustrations are not. COVER: Edmund Collein: Vorkurs Studierende, Bauatelier Gropius, Winter Semester (preliminary course students, Walter Gropius Atelier), ca. 1927-28 8.9 x 11.7 cm; 82:032:001; Published in R.E.D. Bauhaus 5, 1930 Single copies and trade orders are distributed by: University of Arizona Press 1617 E. Speedway Tucson, Arizona 85719 Director)s Statement by ]AMES ENYEART THE COLLECTION GOALS of the Center for Creative tory of art. For a number of years, the Center has Photography include four areas of interest: lifetime been acquiring photographs made at the Bauhaus archives of photographers, special collections repre­ during its active years. Additionally, photographs senting some unique aspect of an artist's work, on­ have been added to this collection made by individ­ going contemporary selections representing the spirit uals associated with the Bauhaus, but made after the of the day, and concentrated collections representing Bauhaus no longer existed. artistic movements, trends, or fashions. This issue of We are pleased to present the following essay by The Archive is devoted to one of the collections repre­ Suzanne Pastor, whose research into the Center's col­ senting a uniquely influential artistic movement, that lection and the history of the Bauhaus provide a new of the Bauhaus. look at the environment of play, adventure, experi­ The Bauhaus was, of course, an institution and ment, and craftsmanship that characterized this unique not a movement per se during its own time. Never­ institution. Ms. Pastor's scholarship in this area pro­ theless, the effect that it had upon Western society in vides new information concerning both the myths both the design and look of our everyday lives was as and reality that have grown up around the Bauhaus. significant as any recognized movement in the his- 3 Franz Roh: untitled 21.9 x 15.2 cm 82:029:004 Photography and the Bauhaus by E. SUZANNE PASTOR IT 1s SAID Adelsbrief of those who have studied at the Bauhaus Walter Funkac, T. Lux Feininger, Irene Bayer, Lotte that they carry forever after an invisible Beese, and Gertrud Arndt, all of whom photographed or patent of nobility. Despite this halo bestowed by rather extensively at the Bauhaus-and none of whom history and historians upon chose who attended the learnedphotography there-emphasize repeatedly that Bauhaus-and perhaps because of this halo-it has there was no such thing. Photography was "in the become increasingly necessary to attempt a clearer air" throughout Europe just like a lot of other things, contextual study of the Bauhaus phenomenon: from an international phenomenon and nothing out of the its foundation in 1919 as a school of art and design ordinary at the Bauhaus. They recall that every sec­ by the architect Walter Gropius, through its colorful ond person was taking pictures on the side, andpho­ no­ course during a period of extreme economic and po­ bodytographer. thought it particularly remarkable. Certainly no litical instability, co its ultimate dissolution in 1933 one would have thought to call him- or herself a with the coming to power of the right-wing National They are surprised that those pictures arc Socialist Party under Adolf Hitler. being exhibited now.' The phenomenon of photography's rebirth in Eu­ In the early twenties there were several schools rope between the two world wars appeared in a mul­ providing training in photography to which aspiring titude of new guises variously labeled "experimen­ design students could apply. The Folkwangschule in tal," "New Vision," "New Photography," and "New Essen offered instruction in graphic art, photography, Objectivity." The practice of photography at the Bau­ typography, and advertising under Max Burchartz's haus and its alleged subsequent international influence direction as of 1926, three years before the Bauhaus requireBa11hausstil closer study. As is the case with ocher major established a photography department under Petcr­ aspects of the Bauhaus,Piidagogik, such as the notion of a sin­ hans. A progressive school for design in Moscow, gular or the definition of a homogenous, Vkhutemas, or Free State Art-Technical Workshops, unified Bauhaus the case for a Bauhaus was established in 1918 along lines very similar to the photography is comprised more of fiction than fact. Bauhaus. Alexander Rodchcnko and El Lissitsky led Notwithstanding the well-documented presences of workshops there in construction (form) and metal Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Herbert Bayer, and Walter design. Its goal was the integration of art with pro­ Peterhans, all of whom used photography at the duction design for the benefit of the national econo­ Bauhaus at some point, the question may well be my. By 1926, the Kunstgcwerbeschulc Burg Gicbich­ raised: ls it correct to write about "Bauhaus photog­ cnstcin in Halle offeredcourses in photography under raphy" at all? Hans Finslcr, who taught there between 1922 and For many who studied and photographed at the 1932 after studying art history in Munich under the Bauhaus, the concept of a "Bauhaus photography" influential Heinrich WolfAin. There was considerable appears largely a myth. Outspoken former Bauhaus contact between the Bauhaus and these latter two members, or "Bauhauslers," including Lucia Moholy, schools especially. In Berlin, the Lette-Verein had 5 been trammg women for the profession since 1866. a new society. The Bauhaus underwent several trans­ Considering the widespread photographic activity at formations during the course of its fourteen-year these and other schools, it would be as distorting to existence, both thriving and surviving in the unstable address in isolation such concepts as "Folkwangschule political atmosphere of Germany between the two photography," "Vkhutemas photography," or "Burg world wars. Giebichenstein photography" as to validate the term It had developed similarly to nineteenth-century "Bauhaus photography." movements in art school reform, like those of John Contributing to the mythology of "a" photogra­ Ruskin and Gottfried Semper in the 1850s, William phy at the Bauhaus are a few aging 2misconceptions, Morris in the 1890s, and the Deutsche Werkbund in the most common of which is that Moholy-Nagy the first decade of the twentieth century, seeking to officially taught photography there. A second mis­ revive hand craftsmanshiplost through industrializa­ conception is that Bayer was a professor of photogra­ tion and reconcile human creativity with modern tech­ phy at the Bauhaus . Many of the innovations of the nology. By 1923 it was recognized that what was tak­ early twenties in photography, typography, printing, ing place was, in effect, a production of individual, and graphic art frequentlyand generously credited to handcrafted goods, affordable only to a wealthy elite the Bauhaus gene pool-such "inventions" as the and of little benefit to industry or society. With the photocollage, photomontage, and photogram-orig­ departure of Itten and establishment of Moholy-Nagy inated outside the Bauhaus and are better referred to and Josef Albers, the Bauhaus joined the new interna­ as adaptations or applications. tional constructivist movements leading toward what Exhibitions and publications bearing the title "Bau­ Gropius in 1923 termed "art and technology-a new haus Photography" contribute to photohistorical dis­ unity." tortion, for the term is in many ways a misnomer. In In 1924 the school was moved to Dessau, an hour's order to place the phenomenon into a broader, more drive southwest of Berlin, into modern glass and steel accurate context, the term Bauhaus photographs is quarters designed by Gropius,
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