1. Herbert bayer
(April 5, 1900 – September 30, 1985)
widely recognized as the last
living member of the
Bauhaus
graphic designer,
painter,
photographer,
sculptor,
art director,
environmental designer,
interior designer
architect,
2. About Bauhaus
Bauhaus “house of construction”
a school in Germany, operated from 1919 to 1933,
that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was
famous for the approach to design which was
associated with the radically simplified forms, the
rationality and functionality of design that it
publicized and taught.
founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar and then
moved to Dessau in 1924 where Gropius
designed this iconic building.
3. Joost Schmidt poster for the 1923 Bauhaus
Exhibition in Weimar, Germany
The first proclamation of the Bauhaus declared: "Archiects,
painters, and sculptors must recognize anew the composite
character of a building as an entity... Art is not a 'profes-
sion.' There is no essential difference between the artist and
the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman... Together
let us conceive and create the new building of the future,
which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting
in one unity and which will rise one day toward heaven from
the hands of a million workers like the crystal symbol of a
new faith."
This initial statement reflected a nostalgia for the guild sys-
tems and collective community spirit that built the great
Gothic cathedrals, as well as the socialist thought then cur-
rent in Germany and throughout much of Europe. Suspicion
of this political attitude caused antagonism toward the
school among the more conservative elements in Weimar, an
antagonism that finally in 1925 drove the Bauhaus to its new
home in Dessau.
4. Life of Herbert bayer
1900 Born on April 5, 1900 in a village near Salzburg in Northern Austria.
Took up an apprenticeship with the architect and designer Georg Schmidthamer in Linz,.
1919 Produced his first typographic works.
1921 Worked at the Darmstadt artists' colony as assistant to the architect Josef Emmanuel Margold.
Enrolled as a student at the Weimar Bauhaus.
1921 Initially attended the pre-course under Johannes Itten.
Then attended a workshop on mural painting, lead by Wassily Kandinsky.
Completed training.
1925 Appoined head of the newly created workshop for print and advertising at the
Dessau Bauhaus.
Moved to Berlin.
Worked as a graphic designer in advertising and as an artistic director of an advertising
1928 agency called "Studio Dorland".
Devoted his time to the design of exhibitions, painting and photography.
Became art director of "Vogue" magazine in Paris.
Emigrated to the US.
1938 Arranged the exhibition "Bauhaus 1919-1928" at the New York Museum of Modern Art.
Moved to Aspen, Colorado.
Worked as a painter, graphic designer, architect and landscape designer.
Worked as an artistic consultant for several companies and institutions, including the
1946 "Container Corporation of America", the "Atlantic Richfield Company".
Design consultant for the Aspen cultural center and member of the art board for the
information bureau of the United States of America.
1974 In 1974 the artist moved to Montecito, California.
1985 Died.
5. Works of Herbert bayer
Although Bayer considered himself primarily a painter, it was only in the early 1960s that he began to exhibit more
consistently. Throughout his career he combined geometric and organic abstract forms in an imaginatively sugges-
tive way in works.
In his photography his approach was similarly anti-narrative, focusing on the geometric abstract formations to be
found in the real world.
In his constant belief in the need to integrate all aspects of artistic creativity into the modern industrial world, Bayer
was a true spokesman for the Bauhaus ethos, as well as its last surviving master.
6. Universal typeface (1925)
As head of the typography workshop (1923–1928), Bayer
developed his own vision of graphic design. Few designs
apply the rules of a system in strict allegiance to modern Universal-Alfabet vs. ITC Bauhaus. Above, P22 Bayer Universal. This
principles of reductive functionalism to the same degree 1997 digital font approximates letters drawn by Herbert Bayer at
as Bayer’s design for a universal typeface. Derived from a the Bauhaus, c. 1926. Below, ITC Bauhaus Demi, first released in
fixed set of streamlined elements, the face was meant to 1975. This is a more stylized typeface, less tightly based on Bayer’s
serve any and all purposes. The letters reain their ele- drawings. Note the gaps in the letters a, b, d, e, g, p, and q. ITC Bau-
gance and consistency throughout. haus also includes uppercase letters (not pictured).
7. German inflation currency
(1923)
German political and economic vicissitues of
the 1920s involved tremendous inflation. Her-
bert Bayer was given the task of designing cur-
rency in large
denominations. This design makes use
of Bayer’s preferred black and red ink, rule, and
sans serif type, overprinted in bold orthogonal
arrangements. This, strikingly modern, design
without
portraits and extraneous information leaves
only the base of value and identification of the
issuing authority. Bayer’s simple design pre-
vents the bills from becoming useless in times of
major politcal change, with no attatchment to
a politcal figures or parties.
8. Poster for Wassily Kandinsky’s exhibition and 60th Birthday
(1926)
The functionalist aesthetic that
characterizes modern design is exemplified
by the approach developed at the Bauhaus.
This poster was designed by Bayer, while
teaching at the school, for an exhibition of
the modern abstract painter Wassily Kan-
dinsky. Kandinsky aspired to a graphic
mode that would be analogous to musical
composition: rhythm, tone and harmony.
The formalist, geometric graphics of the
1910s and 1920s came to be completely
identified with their period. Bayer’s design
expresses a similar sensibility. All of the ele-
ments are geometric, except for the photo-
graph which is machine-made. Bayer’s ap-
proach shows modernism in a mature
phase of development. The bold formalism
of rule, type, and blocks sets up an active
dialogue with the sheet’s edge at every
point that registers an angle.
9. Self Portrait
Before a Mirror
or
“Humanly impossible”
– 1932
The Lonely Metropolitan
– 1932
