Bauhaus' Personal Side

Transcription

1 Bauhaus' Personal Side UPI-2M BOOKS announces the release of BAUHAUS PERSONALLY: The Marie- Luise Betlheim Collection, Weimar Zagreb. For the first time, this book exhibits a collection of valuable archival materials found in Zagreb, and draws an intriguing, different, intimate portrait of the Bauhaus, revealing less known aspects of life at the famous German school. The influence that the Bauhaus had on Croatian art and cultural scene is a permanently intriguing and inspiring theme. Every new discovery that confirms the ties between these two cultural milieus is therefore highly valuable and significant. Precisely such is the Marie-Luise Betlheim Collection, a private archive kept and discovered in Zagreb, which sheds a novel light on those bonds. This ample collection is now thoroughly presented in BAUHAUS PERSONALLY: The Marie-Luise Betlheim Collection, Weimar Zagreb, a

2 book that offers a new platform for research on the Bauhaus, particularly during its Weimar period. Marie-Luise Betlheim was a young woman who developed close friendships with a number of prominent personages of the Weimar Bauhaus. German-born, in 1927 she settled in Zagreb, and brought a particular dowry to her new home: a rich portfolio containing graphics, drawings, photographs, illustrated letters, sketches, plans, and notes from her Bauhaus friends. The map included, among others, works by the charismatic young Hungarian architect Farkas Molnár; creations of Lou Scheper, an exquisite fine artist, and her spouse Hinnerk Scheper, master of the Bauhaus wallpainting workshop. It also contained pieces by Max Krajewski, a talented Polish sculptor, designer, architect, and a longtime assistant to Walter Gropius. BAUHAUS PERSONALLY: The Marie-Luise Betlheim Collection, Weimar Zagreb finally presents these valuable memories, to tell an other, personal story about the life at the Bauhaus. It speaks about the pulsating creativity of the school, about the intensity and novelty of its ideas, about high aspirations and expectations of its students, and their strong belief in the power of artistic experiment. The book thereby reveals the true character of the protagonists intimate, complex and emotionally demanding ties an intricate network of close relationships that had deep implications on both their lives and their oeuvres. In the introduction, Želimir Koščević tells the story about the history and discovery of the Marie-Luise Betlheim Collection in Zagreb. Essays by Hubertus Gaßner ( The Red Cube ) and Ákos Moravánszky ( From The Projective to The Project: A Commentary on Farkas Molnár's Architectural Drawings in the Marie-Luise Betlheim Collection ) further elaborate on particular aspects of the Collection. In the documentary part, the book presents original manuscripts, commentaries, photographs, letters and memories of enormous value (e.g. Farkas' Molnár Manuscripts from the Marie-Luise Betlheim Collection, Molnár's Life at the Bauhaus, memories of Lou and Dirk Scheper), and also includes personal correspondence between Marie-Luise and Farkas Molnár, Max Krajewski, and Lou and Hinnerk Scheper. In addition, BAUHAUS PERSONALLY comprises the Collection catalogue with reproductions of the works by Farkas Molnár, Sándor Bortnyik, Henrik Stefán, Paul Klee, Lou and Hinnerk Scheper, Karl Peter Röhl,

3 Franz Frahm-Hessler, Kurt Schwerdtfeger and others, revealing the Collection's fascinating value. The synergy of these complex sets of materials included in BAUHAUS PERSONALLY: The Marie-Luise Betlheim Collection, Weimar Zagreb testifies once again to the Bauhaus as a unique creative experiment, and renders some of its outstanding protagonists in a new and more intimate light. The fact that the collection found its home precisely in Zagreb witnesses afresh to the widest spread of the Bauhaus influence and importance. Title: BAUHAUS OSOBNO / BAUHAUS PERSÖNLICH Authors: Ruth Betlheim, Hubertus Gaßner, Željko Koščević, Ákos Moravánszky, Dirk Scheper Editor: Vladimir Mattioni Text reviewer: Karin Šerman Translation: Jasenka Bačić, Marcel Bačić, Gordana Begović Ikica, Milka Car, Alma Kalinski Published: Language: croatian, german Pages: 271 Size: 26x30cm Binding: paperback ISBN: Price: EUR Publisher: UPI-2M PLUS d.o.o., Medulićeva 20, Zagreb, Croatia, , info@upi2mbooks.hr

4 Sandor Bortnyik, Mother with Child, 1922

5 Paul Klee, The Lover, 1923

6 Farkas Molnar, Portrait of Marcel Breuer, 1922

7 Farkas Molnar, Male Nude 1, 1923

8 Farkas Molnar, Architectural Fantasy, 1923

9 Farkas Molnar, The Red Cube, project for a single-family house, 1923

10 Lou Scheper, Illustrated letter 01 (b), 1922

11 Lou Scheper, Illustrated letter 12, 1928

12 Walter Gropius: The idea and construction of the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar, 1923