Herbert Bayer, Graphic Designer: From the Bauhaus to Berlin, 1921–1938
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Overview
Herbert Bayer was one of the most extraordinary artists associated with the Bauhaus school. A true multimedia artist, he united graphic design, art, and architecture in a unique style that came to represent the bold aesthetic approach of the movement. A teacher with the school until 1928, Bayer went on to become a highly successful graphic designer in Germany, and later one of the most prominent figures in the 20th-century art scene of the United States.
This broad biographical account, which presents previously unseen archival photographs and episodes from the life of Bayer and other influential Bauhaus artists such as Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy, follows Bayer through the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany and finally to his exile in the United States. Specifically, Patrick Rössler reveals for the first time Bayer’s unique experience of 1930s Germany, where, with his commercial and artistic life shattered by terror and censorship, he distracted himself with leading a hedonistic life. Shining a light on Bayer’s time in Berlin during the Weimar Republic, and his route out of the Nazi state, Rössler provides rich new insights into how Bauhaus artists navigated a protracted period of social upheaval and dictatorship, where commercial success was fraught with a deep hostility towards the regime and the temptations of emigration.
Revealing the tensions of an avant-garde artist struggling to practice during a period of repression, Herbert Bayer, Graphic Designer speaks to both the memory of those who left Nazi Germany, but also the perseverance of artists and intellectuals throughout history who have worked under authoritarian regimes. Drawing on never before interpreted documents, letters and archival material, Rössler tells Bayer’s compelling story – documenting the life of a unique artist and offering a valuable contribution to research in émigré experiences.
An engaging biography of Bauhaus master and leading graphic designer Herbert Bayer, covering his time in the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany, as well as his escape to the USA.
An original insight into the life of a leading 20th-century graphic designer
Provides details of Herbert Bayer’s biographical legacy which has been thus far neglected
Offers new evidence about a renowned artist’s career in Nazi Germany, the compromises that he was forced to make and his road to exile
Describes unknown episodes from the lives of Gropius, Breuer, Moholy-Nagy and other major figures of the Bauhaus movement
Includes translations of previously unpublished material such as personal diaries and letters from rare German sources
Heavily illustrated with unseen archival photographs from Bayer’s estate and a wealth of samples from his artistic and graphic design work
List of Plates
List of Figures
Introduction
1. Biographical fragments: Family, friends and companions
2. Commercial artist under National Socialism: “my advertising purgatory”
3. Shifting networks: “I’m here for love”
4. Road to emigration: “when the Nazis came to steal the land”
5. New beginnings among old friends: “i don’t risk starting here without any money”
6. Progress in the USA and a look back: “I am personally struck by their success”
Conclusion: “a useful and effective member of our society“
Bibliography
Index
Shining a new light on the life and work of Herbert Bayer, this insightful book makes a vital contribution to our understanding of modernism and the 20th century events that shaped its practitioners, and how this extraordinary designer navigated those complex times.
Extensively researched, Rössler’s lively text analyzes Bayer’s artistic, personal, and political journey from the Bauhaus to the US and hits issues head on-addressing difficult questions regarding history, emigration, politics, and biography
Gorgeously illustrated and rigorously researched, this book lays bare the crucial missing decade in the life and work of this innovative, influential, and often misunderstood artist. Patrick Rössler’s engaging and unflinching account is a must read for anyone interested in design history and the contradictions of creative life in Nazi Berlin.
- Title: Herbert Bayer, Graphic Designer: From the Bauhaus to Berlin, 1921–1938
- Author: Patrick Rössler
- Series: Visual Cultures and German Contexts
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
- Print Publication Date: 2023
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Pages: 336
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781350229693, 9781350229679, 1350229679, 1350229695
- Resource ID: LLS:9781350229693
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2025-04-22T12:11:08Z
Patrick Rössler is Professor of Empirical Communication Research and Methods at the University of Erfurt, Germany. He is author of The Bauhaus and Public Relations (2014), and with Elizabeth Otto, he co-edited Bauhaus Bodies: Gender, Sexuality, and Body Culture in Modernism's Legendary Art School (2019).