From left: Josef Albers, Marcel Breuer, Gunta Stölzl,
Oskar Schlemmer, Wassily Kandinsky, Walter Gropius,
Herbet Bayer, Lazslo Moholoy-Nagy, Hinnerk Scheper
The Bauhaus was the most influential modernist art school of the 20th century, one whose approach to teaching, and understanding art’s relationship to society and technology, had a major impact both in Europe and the United States long after it closed. It was shaped by the 19th and early 20th centuries trends such as Arts and Crafts movement, which had sought to level the distinction between fine and applied arts, and to reunite creativity and manufacturing.
This is reflected in the romantic medievalism of the school’s early years, in which it pictured itself as a kind of medieval crafts guild. But in the mid 1920s the medievalism gave way to a stress on uniting art and industrial design, and it was this which ultimately proved to be its most original and important achievement. The school is also renowned for its faculty, which included artists Wassily Kandinsky, Josef Albers,László Moholy-Nagy, Paul Klee and Johannes Itten, architects Walter Gropius andLudwig Mies van der Rohe, and designer Marcel Breuer.
