It has been a long time since the term ‘Bauhaus’ has been capitalized for describing the design culture developed in interwar Germany by the Modern Movement, and with the forthcoming Bauhaus centennial of 2019, we will start seeing more and more international events, exhibitions, and scholarship honoring the innovation and heritage of this pivotal educational institution. Next month, London will be celebrating the legacy of the legendary design school founded by Walter Gropius, in two separate exhibitions, presenting two takes on interpreting the design associated with it. Sotheby’s will present an auction entitled ‘Bauhaus: Defining a Century,’ covering the artistic endeavor undertaken and inspired by the Bauhaus, while Berlin-based Galerie Ulrich Fiedler, the leading gallery and most responsible authority for this material, will be showing rare and early objects created at the various workshops of the Weimar home of the school at FRIEZEMASTERS, the art fair at Regent’s Park. The exhibition at Sotheby’s comes to tell the story of the Modern Movement that had come to define arts and design of the 20th Century, by presenting pieces by such members of the Bauhaus faculty including Wassily Kandinsky, László Maholoy-Nagy, and Josef and Anni Albers, even when made, designed, and created in later years, or by personalities that were not a part of the Bauhaus, but were inspired by it. Galerie Ulrich Fiedler, on the other hand, focuses on the typologies, the icons of the time when the Bauhaus focused on the marriage of arts and crafts and just before it had moved to be engaged with industry, the years between 1919 and 1926. This includes the magical Marcel Breuer’s “Rückenlehnstuhl” armchair Model ti 1a, which he created in 1923, of rectangular section laths of massive polished cherry wood, seat and back in fabric, stretched around the billets and fixed with iron nails (below). Two approaches to perceive and collect historical design. Above: Theodor Bogler 1895 – 1966 Bauhaus Kombination-Teapot, “Tee-Extraktkanne”
Marcel Breuer 1902 – 1981 Armchair “Rückenlehnstuhl” Model ti 1a, 1923 @Galerie Ulrich Fiedler
Marianne Brandt, ashtray 1923, stamped bauhaus @Galerie Ulrich Fiedler
Wilhelm Wagenfeld Table Lamp M29, Weimar 1927 @Galerie Ulrich Fiedler
Erich Dieckmann, Childs Chair, Weimar 1926 @Galerie Ulrich Fiedler
Marcel Breuer, ‘Isokon Long Chair,’ 1935-6 @Sotheby’s
Gerrit Thomas Rietveld, ‘Zig-Zag Chair, Designed 1934; executed 1950 @Sotheby’s
Josef Hartwig and Joos Schmidt, Chess Set @Sotheby’s