JOHANNES ITTEN & THUN: NATURE IN FOCUS 8.8.–22.11.2020 ENGLISH INTRODUCTION Johannes Itten (1888–1967) is a prominent figure in twentieth-century art history. What not many people know, however, is how much his perceptions of landscape and nature were influenced by his early years in Thun and his ramblings around Lake Thun and the surrounding area. The exhibition begins with these early days in Itten’s career and presents a number of never-before-seen paintings and drawings that document the extent to which the artist’s experience of the landscape around Thun inspired a concept of nature that was fundamental to his art, helping us to trace a trajectory from the nature studies of his youth to his work after 1940. 1 BIOGRAPHY studies again in October at weaving and teaches at the 1939 the École des Beaux-Arts in affiliated art school. Holds Weds Anneliese Schlösser. 1888 Geneva. lectures on Mazdaznan Johannes Itten is born on teachings. 1943 11 November in Süderen- 1913 Director of the Textilfach- Linden (Bernese Oberland) Returns to Bern. Switches 1925 schule der Seidenindus- to the teacher and farmer to the Academy of Fine Arts Moves to Berlin. triegesellschaft (Textile Johannes Itten and Elise in Stuttgart, studying with School of the Silk Indus- Jost, a farmer’s daughter. Adolf Hölzel. 1926 try Society) in Zurich (until Founds the Modern Art 1960). 1892 1914 School of Berlin. Father’s death. Itten lives When the war breaks out, 1944 for two years with his Itten temporarily returns to 1929 Exhibition “Colour in Nature, grandmother in the Jost Thun. Master student with Opens the Itten School in a Art, Science and Technol- family house in Fahrni Hölzel in Stuttgart starting new building at Konstanzer ogy” at the Kunstgewerbe- above Steffisburg. in November. Strasse 14 in Berlin-Wilm- museum in Zurich. ersdorf on 1 December. 1894 1916 1948 Itten moves back in with Solo exhibition at Herwarth 1930 Solo exhibition in New York. his mother. He has a tense Walden’s gallery “Der Publishes his Tagebuch. relationship with his step- Sturm” in Berlin. Moves to Beiträge zu einem Kontra- 1949 father. He spends win- Vienna in October. Founds punkt der Bildenden Kunst Commissioned to set up ters in Süderen-Linden and a private art school. (Diary: Contributions on a the Museum Rietberg, a summers on the Marbach Counterpoint of Visual Art). museum of non-European alpine pasture in Eriz. 1917–1918 art in Zurich. Makes contacts on the 1932 1898–1904 Viennese art, music and lit- Named director of the 1952 Schooling in Thun. Itten erature scene, including Krefeld School of Textile Opening of the Museum lives on the castle hill with Walter Gropius. Design in January. Teaches Rietberg. Director of the his uncle and aunt. week-long courses in Berlin museum until 1956. 1919 and Krefeld. 1904–1908 Walter Gropius appoints 1955 Teacher training seminar in Itten to the Bauhaus. Itten 1934 Studio in Unterengstringen Hofwil near Bern and from weds Hildegard Anbelang The Itten School in Berlin in the Limmat Valley near 1906 in Bern. In March 1908 in Thun. Moves to Wei- closes. Zurich. Itten attains his primary mar in October and begins teaching license. teaching at the Bauhaus. 1937 1957 Works by Itten are includ- Retrospective at the 1908–1909 1919–1923 ed in the summer exhibition Stedelijk Museum in Primary school teacher in Sets up the foundation “Degenerate Art” in Munich. Amsterdam. Schwarzenburg near Bern. course at the Bauhaus. The City of Krefeld dismiss- Master of form in vari- es Itten as school director. 1961 1909 ous workshops. Studio in Publication Die Kunst der From October art studies at the “Templar House”. Pro- 1938 Farbe (The Art of Colour). the École des Beaux-Arts in duces major works includ- The Krefeld School of Geneva. ing the Tower of Light/ Tow- Textile Design closes on 31 1962 er of Fire and the Portrait of March. After many years Solo exhibition at 1910 a Child. of separation, divorce from Kunstmuseum Thun. Drops out of the École des Hildegard Itten-Anbelang. Beaux-Arts and returns to 1920 Emigrates to Amsterdam. 1964 Bern. Attends a Mazdaznan con- Commissioned to paint Retrospective at the ference in Leipzig with a velum (ceiling cover- Kunsthaus Zürich. 1910–1912 Georg Muche. Spreads ing) for the staircase of the Training as a secondary the Mazdaznan teachings Stedelijk Museum. 1966 school teacher at the Uni- of O. Z. Hanish at the Bau- Itten represents Switzer- versity of Bern. haus. Internal conflicts with 1938–1953 land at the 33rd Venice Gropius, among others. Appointed director of the Biennale. 1911 Kunstgewerbemuseum and Exhibition of the oil painting 1923–1925 Kunstgewerbeschule in 1967 Early Spring on the Rhone Itten leaves the Bauhaus in Zurich (Museum and School Johannes Itten dies on 25 at the Kunstmuseum Bern. March. Joins the Interna- of Decorative Arts), where March in Zurich. tional Mazdaznan Temple he stays until his retirement 1912 Community in Herrliberg at the end of 1953. Numer- Travels to exhibitions in on Lake Zurich. Founds ous exhibitions on issues Paris, Munich, Cologne the Ontos Workshops for in art, decorative arts and and Amsterdam. Takes up hand weaving and carpet industrial design. 2 OVERVIEW Zurich years Zurich years Zurich years 3 2 1 Tree studies ARRI project room Seclusion in Film Sigriswil Berlin – Krefeld – Amsterdam WC Biography Itten at at Itten the Bauhhaus Thun landscapes Cash desk / Family and reception friends Early landscapes Vienna years FAMILY AND FRIENDS skill at clearly accentuating the main lines of the landscape Itten spent his youth working outdoors close to nature, structures he observed in a mode verging on abstraction. passing the summer months from 1894 onward on the Mar- His paintings then add expressive colouring and lively bach alpine pastures in Eriz. In 1898 his uncle Jakob Itten, lighting. Itten produced his first large-format oil painting, a well-off notary and president of the citizens’ council in Early Spring on the Rhone, in the spring of 1911 and present- Thun, enabled Itten to continue his education there by tak- ed it in the Christmas exhibition at the Kunstmuseum Bern ing over the guardianship for him and his sister Maria Eli- that same year, launching his career as an artist. sa. From 1894 to 1904, Itten lived on the castle hill in Thun with his uncle and aunt and their children. He attended pri- THUN LANDSCAPES mary school there, and then secondary school from 1899 It comes as no surprise that Itten’s oeuvre begins with to 1904. These years of a strict upbringing and schooling landscapes and that renderings of nature would go on to are documented by photos showing Itten in 1903 among shape his art throughout his lifetime. Motifs from the coun- the Thun Cadets, and surrounded by family at the wedding tryside around Thun recur throughout his work: nature and of his cousin Arnold Itten in April 1910. Itten depicted his landscape, mountains, hills, valleys, trees and “trees of life”, family members in Thun in various portrait studies. In con- flowers and fruit still lifes as well as the four seasons are trast to the urban milieu of Thun, his autumn school holi- central themes of his art. At the same time, Itten’s engage- days were spent with his mother in the countryside tend- ment with the Cubist principles of prismatic formal analy- ing the livestock. sis and polyperspectivity also left a mark on his landscape depictions. Quite a few of his early works are still in the EARLY LANDSCAPES possession of family members in Thun or are connected Among the formative experiences of his youth were Itten’s with the city through their provenance. For a long time, it unforgettable adventures in nature in the Bernese Ober- was not clear where the painting titled Houses by the Water land and Thun countryside. Although no examples of his was made, but now historical photographs have been first attempts at painting from his early Thun years before uncovered that prove that this key work shows a motif not 1907 have survived, his memoirs document a world of fan- from Stuttgart but rather the prominent sawtooth-roofed tasy and imagination that was deeply influenced by the buildings of Selve AG in Thun. time he spent there exploring nature and the landscape. In small sketches and oil paintings, Itten captured the natu- SECLUSION IN SIGRISWIL ral surroundings of his childhood in the hills above Thun as Itten wrote one of his important artistic diaries during a well as in Hofwil near Bern, where he did his teacher train- stay in the countryside around Sigriswil, from late July ing. His early composition sketches already attest to his to late September 1918. He outlined therein most of the 3 Johannes Itten (with wheelbarrow), his mother, and siblings Rudolf (right) Portrait Johannes Itten in a paint smock with Golden Ratio-Compass and and Marie (center), 1894 Color Star artistic and art theory principles he would later put into to the Spanish flu in 1918. One year later, Itten married her practice in his work at the Bauhaus in Weimar: rhythm and sister Hildegard Anbelang in Thun’s Schlosskirche. harmony in music and painting, polarity theory, colour the- During this period, Itten outlined his artistic creed in a ory, expression through form, analyses of the Old Masters, large number of important drafts, sketches, poems, archi- and time-space-movement as theme. tectural drawings, observations and aesthetic maxims. A postcard that is now in the collection of the Muse- While he had thus far followed in the quite traditional foot- um of Modern Art in New York, which Itten made in August steps of his Stuttgart teacher Adolf Hölzel, he now sought 1918 for his art historian friend Hans Tietze in Vienna, to see art with new eyes, along the lines of the contem- shows a pencil sketch of the landscape panorama around porary life reform movement.