11th October 2022

This was a good one for me, I think because although I have heard of Bauhaus in passing, it’s influence and legacy has never really been something that I have considered in depth. Although I’ve always loved art, I am late to to learning about it and evaluating it and understanding the importance of art as the world changed between the two world wars.

It is interesting to understand the roles assigned to the women of the Bauhaus, in the main they were very traditional. It’s also interesting when the school had to close, how they went on and influenced other schools like the Black Mountain College. I never knew that Kadinsky was involved in teaching colour studies to Bauhaus students. I researched his art last year when I did a small project on synesthesia, music in art. He is a name that keeps coming up in my studies. Another is Joseph Albers, whose wife Annie was also a colour theory teacher.

What the Bauhaus school did was unify art and craft using technology, wanting and promoting change for the better. For the first time art and design were being taught together and it brought out lots of new representation. It incorporated modernism and optimism and had international appeal.

Joseph and Annie Albers taught at the Black Mountain College of Art, in North Caroline. The students there also had a strong commitment to study design and art. Jackson Pollock, Rochenberg, Lloyd Cunningham all had links to the summer school at Black Mountain. American Modernism, Abstract Expressionists all tie back to ideas and lessons that originated from the Bauhaus School and its teachers and students.