1920’s-30’s Bauhaus Graphic Design

A workshop for printmaking existed only at the Bauhaus in Weimar. In 1921, Lyonel Feininger was artistic director, master craftsman was the lithographer Carl Zaubitzer. The production of graphic series and portfolios of the Bauhaus masters, started in 1921,  stood at the peak of the workshop activity. Amongst them were Feininger's "Twelve woodcuts"  and Kandinsky's portfolio "Small worlds". A "Master Portfolio of the State Bauhaus" was published as the first title of the "Bauhaus Verlag" (Bauhaus edition). In 1921, parallel to these works, the ambitious project of "Neue Europ�ische Graphik" ("New European Graphics") began: Five portfolios with which the Bauhaus aimed at bringing together not only the artistic forms of expression of the school, but in addition, all the important tendencies of the international Avant-garde - from Futurism to Dada, Constructivism, and Surrealism - were produced. The first portfolio introduced the Bauhaus masters; the consecutive ones presented works by German, Italian, and Russian artists. A portfolio with French prints remained incomplete. The names of the artists - from Chagall to Schwitters, de Chirico to Kokoschka, Archipenko to Severini - make clear the quality of  this compendium of art prints from the twenties. The printmaking workshop did not only produce these series and many individual sheets for the Bauhaus masters, it was equally available to the students for their own works. In addition, the printing workshop also accepted commissions from the outside, for instance for the printing of lithographs after  works by Piet Mondrian and Alexander Rodchenko. Also, the foundations for the future development of functional typography at the Bauhaus were laid with  poster and typography designs for various events and publications at the school. This included the Bauhaus postcards, which found wide distribution as original graphic miniatures and which, in their  combination of typeface and image, were to become an important advertising medium for the Bauhaus.   http://www.bauhaus.de/english/bauhaus1919/kunst/kunst_graphik.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphic_design http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/b/bauhaus.html http://www.amazon.co.uk/ABCs-Triangle-Circle-Square-Bauhaus/dp/1878271423 http://www.eyemagazine.com/review.php?id=130&rid=633&set=700