City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Graduate Center 2-2016 The aB uhaus Wall Painting Workshop: Mural Painting to Wallpapering, Art to Product Morgan Ridler Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! Follow this and additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds Part of the Modern Art and Architecture Commons Recommended Citation Ridler, Morgan, "The aB uhaus Wall Painting Workshop: Mural Painting to Wallpapering, Art to Product" (2016). CUNY Academic Works. https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/685 This Dissertation is brought to you by CUNY Academic Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects by an authorized administrator of CUNY Academic Works. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE BAUHAUS WALL PAINTING WORKSHOP: MURAL PAINTING TO WALLPAPERING, ART TO PRODUCT by MORGAN RIDLER A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Art History in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2016 2016 MORGAN RIDLER Some rights reserved. Except where otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 United States License. Images and third-party content are not being made a license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Art History to satisfy the dissertation requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Professor Rose-Carol Washton Long________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee Professor Rachel Kousser________________________ Date Executive Officer Professor Romy Golan Professor Rosemarie Bletter Professor Barry Bergdoll Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii Abstract THE BAUHAUS WALL PAINTING WORKSHOP: MURAL PAINTING TO WALLPAPERING, ART TO PRODUCT By MORGAN RIDLER Adviser: Professor Rose-Carol Washton Long The wall painting workshop at the Bauhaus was established in fall 1919, the first semester of the famed and influential German school of art, architecture, and design. Over the course of the next thirteen years, the workshop experimented with many techniques, philosophies, and strategies for painting, coloring, and covering wall surfaces. This dissertation analyzes the evolving approaches of the Bauhaus wall painting workshop. Early Masters of Form, Oskar Schlemmer and Wassily Kandinsky, oversaw abstract and figurative murals like those developed for the 1923 Bauhaus exhibition, and the student wall painters used color to form and mold architectural spaces in, for example, Walter Gropius’s colored office and the experimental Haus am Horn. In 1924 Kandinsky identified color as the workshop’s medium, which was applied in a variety of approaches by the former students and later leaders of the workshop, Hinnerk Scheper and Alfred Arndt. Arndt’s painting scheme in Haus Auerbach and Scheper’s supervision of the coloration of the new Bauhaus Dessau school building are central to this dissertation and provide excellent examples of these two wall painters’ approaches and differing philosophies. In 1929, during Hannes Meyer’s directorship at the Bauhaus, a new opportunity arose for the workshop to design mass-produced wall color, which would enable color to be more efficiently, cheaply, and uniformly applied. Subsequently, Bauhaus wallpaper became the most profitable Bauhaus product and was quickly hanging on the walls of large housing estates and in retail stores throughout Germany. Murals, wall painting schemes, and iv wallpapers beyond the Bauhaus, in the architecture of, for example, Bruno Taut and Le Corbusier, provide comprehensive and international comparisons for the Bauhaus projects. This dissertation explores the many restored and recreated Bauhaus wall paintings, while addressing the frictions inherent in collaborations between architect and wall painter and the tension in merging color with architectural form at the Bauhaus. v Acknowledgements I would not have been able to complete this dissertation without the help of many people and institutions. I have been fascinated with the Bauhaus for many years and my interest grew serious in 2009 with the Museum of Modern Art exhibition’s Bauhaus 1919–1933: Workshops for Modernity and Professor Rose-Carol Washton Long’s seminar course at The Graduate Center. My paper on Joost Schmidt’s advertisements for Bauhaus wallpaper laid the foundations for this dissertation. I reworked this initial paper for the graduate student conference “Reconsidering the Historiography of the Historical Avant-Garde(s)” organized by Michelle Millar Fisher and Sam Sadow and the comments and feedback propelled me to explore further Bauhaus wallpaper and wall painting. A research grant from the Graduate Center’s Doctoral Student Research Program enabled me to conduct primary research in Germany and visit many important buildings and wall painting sites in Europe. I appreciate the many organizations and professionals who aided my research. At the Bauhaus Archiv in Berlin, Wencke Clausnitzer-Paschold and Sabine Hartmann provided their expertise and assistance. At the Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, Monika Markgraf was instrumental in helping me to understand the coloration and restoration of the Bauhaus buildings in Dessau. In Jena, Barbara Happe and Martin Fischer graciously opened their home, Haus Auerbach. Their time and support were greatly appreciated. Finally, I am indebted to Renate Scheper, who was kind and helpful during my visit to her home and personal archive. Additionally, I am grateful to Michael Siebenbrodt, curator of Bauhaus Museum in Weimar, Germany, Grit Kurth, head archivist at the Thüringisches Hauptstaatsarchiv Weimar, Ann-Kathrin Rönisch of Tapetenfabrik Gebr. Rasch GmbH & Co. KG, and Annika Tengstrand of ArkDes, Stockhom, Sweden. I also thank Joy Goodwin at the Archives of American Art in vi New York and Mary Lister and the staff at the Somerville Research Facility of the Harvard Art Museums. I have presented sections of this project at many conferences. Thank you to the participants in these sessions for the feedback and encouragement. I am also appreciative of the support and comments of Professor Barry Bergdoll, Dr. Dara Kiese, and Dr. Margaret Stenz. Thank you to Professor Rosemarie Bletter, Professor Romy Golan, and Professor John Mascuika and the Graduate Center faculty and staff. Also, thank you to Professor Kevin Murphy, formally of the Graduate Center and now at Vanderbuilt University. I appreciate the encouragement of my fellow students, including my great friends and readers Annie Dell’Aria and Cara Jordan. My exceptional advisor Professor Rose-Carol Washton Long has provided me with steady and positive encouragement through this long process and I thank her. Thank you as well to my family for living art and inspiring my love of art and of the Bauhaus and for supporting me in everything always. Most of all thank you to my full partner in life, Brian. vii Table of Contents Abstract iv Acknowledgements vi List of Illustrations ix Introduction 1 Chapter One: 1919 – 1923: The Early Controversial Walls 30 Chapter Two: The Move to Color: Wassily Kandinsky and The 1923 Bauhaus Exhibition 87 Chapter Three: Alfred Arndt and Hinnerk Scheper and the Role of Color in Architecture 16 Chapter Four: Mass Produced Wall Color: Bauhaus Wallpaper 2 Conclusion 28 Illustrations 2 Bibliography 3 viii List of Illustrations Chapter One Figure 1.1. Johannes Molzahn, Der Idee-Bewegung-Kampf, 1919. Figure 1.2. Henry van de Velde, Havana Tobacco Company, Berlin, 1899. Figure 1.3. Hans Kramer, Interior Figure 1.4. Henry van de Velde, School of Arts and Craft, Weimar, 1904-1911. Figure 1.5. Henry van de Velde, School of Arts and Craft, Workshop Building, Weimar. 1905-1906. Figure 1.6. Henry van de Velde, Interior, School of Arts and Craft, Workshop Building, 1908. Figure 1.7. Georg Kolbe and Erwin Hass, Wall Paintings in the Vestibule of Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer’s Model Factory, Werkbund exhibition, Cologne, 1914. Figure 1.8. Students in the Wall Painting Workshop in front of the Bauhaus Workshop Building, Weimar, c. 1920. Figure 1.9. Peter Drömmer, Werner Lange and Karl Peter Röhl, Painting in Studio of Werner Lange, Kiel, c. 1920-1921. Figure 1.10. Franz Mutzenbecher, Wall Paintings in the Clubroom of Bruno Taut’s Ledigenheim Housing estate, Lindenhof, in Berlin-Schöneberg, 1920. Figure 1.11. Gottlieb Elster, Paul Gösch and Franz Mutzenbecher, Wall Paintings in Ballroom of Bruno Taut’s Ledigenheim Housing estate, Lindenhof, in Berlin-Schöneberg, 1920. Figure 1.12. Ulrich Nitschke, Wall Painting in the Theodor Fischer’s Pfullinger Hallen, Pfullingen, 1906. Figure 1.13. Theodor Fischer, Main Hall, Werkbund exhibition, Cologne, 1914. Figure 1.14. Oskar Schlemmer, Sketch for Mocking of the Devout Nun in the Convent of White Women and the Appearance of the Wonderful Cross, 1914. Figure 1.15. Oskar Schlemmer, Mocking of the Devout Nun in the Convent of White Women and the Appearance of the Wonderful Cross, in Theodor Fischer’s Main Hall, Werkbund exhibition, Cologne, 1914. Figure 1.16. Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer, Jena Municipal Theater, 1921-1922. ix Figure 1.18. Oskar Schlemmer, Eine Aufgabe, Die Für Wandgestaltung oder auch Applizierten Vorhang in Frage Kommt, handwritten note with drawing, pen on paper, 1922. Figure 1.19. Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer, Auditorium Interior, Jena Municipal Theater, 1921-1922. Figure 1.20. Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer, Auditorium Interior, Jena Municipal Theater, 1921-1922. Figure 1.21. Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer, Auditorium Interior, Jena Municipal Theater, 1921-1922. Figure 1.22. Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer, Lobby, Jena Municipal Theater, 1921-1922. Figure 1.23. Walter Gropius and Adolf Meyer, Coat Check Interior, Jena Municipal Theater, 1921-1922. Figure 1.24. Hinnerk Scheper, Plan for Jena Municipal Theater Ceiling, 1922. Figure 1.25. Joost Schmidt, Vestibule of Main Bauhaus building, 1923. Figure 1.26. Oskar Schlemmer, Total Design for Wall Paintings in Workshop Building, Weimar, 1923. Figure 1.27.