the legacy of herbert bayer recent gifts and loans to the Aspen Institute This publication has been produced in conjunction with the exhibition The Legacy of Herbert Bayer: Recent Gifts and Loans to the Aspen Institute, curated by David Floria and presented in the Resnick Gallery, Doerr-Hosier Center, The Aspen Institute, Aspen, Colorado. Opening December 29, 2013 Cover photo: Leinie Schilling Bard, Herbert Bayer, 1983 (#1) Opposite photo: Ferenc Berko, The Aspen Institute and Music Tent, 1965 Photo courtesy of BERKO Photo (#2) Inside back cover: Herbert Bayer, deposition, 1940 (#33) Back cover: Herbert Bayer, landscape, 1982 (#34) Printed in an edition of 1,000 the legacy of herbert bayer recent gifts and loans to the Aspen Institute The Aspen Institute and Music Tent, 1965 (#2) essay by david floria and lissa ballinger biographical background by bernard jazzar belle nuit geometrique, 1978/76 (#3) 2 foreword The Legacy of Herbert Bayer: Recent Gifts and Loans to the This exhibition clearly illustrates his commitment to Aspen Institute signals a new focus in the visual art pro- Bauhaus ideals by presenting a diverse selection from his gramming of the Aspen Institute. The exhibition formal- oeuvre. While this exhibition is a permanent installation, izes the commitment to the collection, study, appreciation, it will evolve as temporary loans are replaced by gifts and and preservation of the work of this master artist, acknowl- new loans. edging his seminal contribution to the Institute. It is the third in a series of exhibitions concerning Herbert Bayer in the Resnick Gallery of the Doerr- Hosier Center. The first two exhibitions, expertly curated by Bernard Jazzar, curator of the Lynda and Stewart Resnick Collection, examined specific periods and bod- ies of work during Bayer’s career. This latest exhibition offers a broad perspective, survey- ing Bayer’s lifework. It is a retrospective, highlighting a variety of media, including paintings, sculptures, tapestries, photographs, graphics, advertisements, and ce- ramics, that have been donated or loaned to the Institute from private collections. Bayer diligently adhered to the ethos of the Bauhaus movement throughout his artistic career. He believed in the equality of all arts; there was no delineation between applied art, craft, and fine art. articulated wall for 1968 olympics (#4) acknowledgments We are grateful for the participation, insight, and gener- exhibited in the Paepcke Gallery in the Walter Paepcke osity of the many donors and lenders for this exhibition: Memorial Building. Leinie Schilling Bard, Britt Bayer, Jan and Robert Blaich, Bernard Jazzar was invaluable in his support and encour- Melva Bucksbaum and Raymond Learsy, Richard Carter, agement. His prior Herbert Bayer exhibitions and exten- Paula and Jim Crown, Virginia Ford, John Gilmore, Jan sive knowledge of the artist were a tremendous resource. and Ronald Greenberg, Teresa and Paul Harbaugh, Paul Hobson, Ann and Ed Hudson, Soledad and Robert It was a pleasure working with everyone on this truly Hurst, Georgia Laudner, Mirte Mallory and the Berko collaborative endeavor. We look forward to continuing Estate, Gail and Alec Merriam, Ann and Bill Nitze, our friendship and professional relationship in celebra- Lynda and Stewart Resnick, Miranda Townsend and tion of Herbert Bayer. Jonathan Bayer, Jennifer and Peter Waanders, Jamie White and Andrew Sirotnak, Jill A. Wiltse and H. Kirk Melva Bucksbaum and Lynda Resnick Brown III, King Woodward, and Paula Zurcher. Aspen Meadows Art Advisory Committee Co-Chairs We are indebted to Hugo Anderson and John Schaefer Walter Isaacson for the loan of their significant Bayer poster collection President and CEO, the Aspen Institute 3 fotomontagen: self portrait, 1932/5 (#5) fotomontagen: lonely metropolitan, 1932/13 (#6) 4 the legacy of herbert bayer The legacy of Herbert Bayer is manifold, including controversial, as well as critically acclaimed. The exhib- major contributions in typography, photography, graphic it’s design attracted the attention of visionary Chicago design, corporate design, exhibition design, earthworks, industrialist Walter Paepcke, president of Container painting, sculpture, and printmaking. The artist was an Corporation of America (CCA). Bayer was hired as innovator in many of these genres. Throughout his life, a consultant to the corporation, working primarily on he pursued projects that challenged and expanded his advertising and graphic design projects. In 1956, he was creative and professional abilities. promoted to chairman of the Department of Design, Bayer’s significant contributions to fine art and design where he was responsible for the corporation’s entire in the 20th century were determined by his involvement aesthetic environment, including: graphic design, ad- with the Bauhaus, both as a student and a master, from vertising, marketing, industrial design, architecture, and 1921 to 1928. The Bauhaus was founded in 1919 by interiors — his first foray into the concept of creating a Walter Gropius in Weimar, Germany, as a modernist total corporate environment. art school emphasizing the equality of all the visual arts. As a result of his relationship with Paepcke, Bayer pio- The seven years that Bayer spent there defined his “way neered the concept of collaboration between the artist and of life and work and a design philosophy suitable for a corporation. Their shared vision of a symbiotic relation- dealing with the problems of the contemporary artist.”1 ship between corporate culture and an aesthetic philoso- He adhered rigorously to the design ideology he absorbed phy was Bayer’s realization of the true Bauhaus credo. during his time as a student of the Bauhaus, where his mentor, Wassily Kandinsky, especially influenced him. During his tenure at CCA, Bayer designed and edit- While teaching at the Bauhaus, he created his “universal ed the extraordinary world geo-graphic atlas, published alphabet,” consisting of sans-serif lowercase letters. This in 1953. This graphically focused view of the postwar innovation was his greatest contribution to the field of world concentrated more on pictorial impact than on the typography, and was also consistent with his overarching textual information. Bayer considered the atlas, published philosophy of visually functional graphic design. by CCA as a gift for business colleagues, to be one of his Determined to turn theory into practical application, greatest achievements. Bayer, at the age of 28, left the Bauhaus and began In 1946, Paepcke offered Bayer a unique opportunity to working in various artistic directions and media in return to his beloved mountain environment, and move Berlin, but primarily in graphic design. to Aspen, Colorado, to help Paepcke create a cultural Notably, he created two bodies of photographic works, utopia. Though his primary responsibility was the plan- photomontagen (1931-1932, 1959) and fotoplastiken ning, landscape design, and architecture of the campus of (1936), which remain today as important works in the the Aspen Institute of Humanistic Studies, he was also canon of fine art photography. In Berlin, Bayer was ex- very involved with the rejuvenation of the town of Aspen. posed to other art movements, such as surrealism, Dada, Paepcke’s vision for the Institute was to create a corpo- and the Paris avant-garde, which greatly influenced his rate retreat to encourage executives to convene, share work and enlarged his worldview. great ideas and cultural values, and nurture their mind, He immigrated to the United States in 1938 and body, and spirit. This “Aspen idea” echoes Bayer’s notion was hired by the Museum of Modern Art to design a of the artist’s responsibility to imbue their work with comprehensive Bauhaus exhibition. It was inventive and “head, heart, and hand.” 2 1 Arthur A. Cohen. Herbert Bayer, The Complete Work (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1984), Foreward 2 Cohen, Foreward 5 fünf, 1922/8 (#7) greek profile,1934 (#8) Our Allies Need Eggs, c. 1940 (#9) Aspen Tourism Poster, c. 1948 (#10) 6 Bayer’s legacy can be viewed today by walking the His post-Bauhaus years in Berlin afforded him an oppor- campus site and seeing the many buildings of which tunity to continue to explore painting. Through his work, he was the designer, including: The Walter Paepcke he made a personal stylistic contribution to modernist Memorial Building, the Koch building (which features painting that was largely unaffected by the vagaries of the his 1952 Sgraffito Wall Mural), the Resnick-Malek particular trends of the day. His painting developed as his Health Center, the Aspen Meadows Reception Center, influences evolved. His early work was primarily water- and the original guest houses. Bayer also created several color landscapes. His painting in the late 1920s and ’30s sculptural earthworks on campus — groundbreaking reflected his influences from surrealism and photography. because they preceded the earthwork movement In the 1940s, while living in New York City and periodi- by nearly a decade. Examples include grass mound, cally escaping to the mountains of Vermont, he returned marble garden and Anderson Park. The interplay of to more atmospheric and geographically oriented sub- the earthworks and the buildings creates a unified jects, including a series he called Convolutions. environment. Bayer wrote: “I am not so much concerned with the individual work of art, as with the total shape Chromatics, his next series, was a significant departure and content of the human scene.” 3 from his biomorphic