WILLI BAUMEISTER

Willi Baumeister Arbeiten auf Papier Works on Paper 1923–1954

Willi Baumeister Arbeiten auf Papier Works on Paper 1923–1954

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Der Maler – mit Bild · The Painter – with painting · 1923 Kohle, gewischt und radiert, über leichter Skizze in Kohle, fixiert, auf hellrosafarbenem Ingres-Bütten · 48,2 x 31,3 cm Charcoal with stump, partly erased, over faint preliminary sketch in charcoal, fixed, on pale pink Ingres paper · 19 x 12 5/ 16 in.

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Komposition, statuarisch, mit Linienformen · Composition, sculptural, with linear forms · 1938 Kohle, gewischt, Bleistift und Farbstift, fixiert, auf chamoisfarbenem bis bräunlichem, am Rand oben perforiertem Zeichenpapier · 29,6 x 21,0 cm Charcoal, with stump, pencil and coloured pencil, fixed, on brownish buff-coloured drawing paper, perforation at the upper edge · 11 5/ 8 x 8 1/ 4 in.

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Relation · 1942 Kohle und Ölkreide, fixiert, auf grauviolettem Ingres-Bütten · 31,3 x 48,1 cm Charcoal and crayon, fixed, on greyish violet Ingres paper · 12 5/ 16 x 18 15/ 16 in.

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Hadeswächter · Guardians of Hades · 1942–43 Kohle, gewischt und radiert, und Ölkreide, fixiert, auf blaugrauem Ingres-Bütten · 47,6 x 64,1 cm Charcoal, with stump and erased, and crayon, fixed, on blue-grey Ingres paper · 18 3/ 4 x 25 1/ 4 in.

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Zwei Figuren im Dialog · Two figures in conversation · 1943 Kohle, fixiert, auf ziegelrotem Ingres-Bütten · 17,7 x 25,0 cm Charcoal, fixed, on light red Ingres paper · 7 x 9 13/ 16 in.

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Figurengruppe · Group of figures · 1943 Kohle, gewischt und radiert, und Ölkreide, durchgerieben, fixiert, auf chamoisfarbenem Ingres-Bütten · 48,0 x 62,0 cm Charcoal, with stump and erased, and crayon, frottaged, fixed, on buff-coloured Ingres paper · 18 7/ 8 x 24 3/ 8 in.

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Esther XXVIII (Variante) 路 Esther XXVIII (variant) 路 1943 Kohle, gewischt, radiert und fixiert, auf chamoisfarbenem, genarbtem Aquarellpapier 路 24,4 x 30,7 cm Charcoal, with stump, erased and fixed, on buff-coloured, coarse-grained watercolour paper 路 9 5/ 8 x 12 1/ 16 in.

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Aus Gilgamesch · From Gilgamesh · 1944 Kohle, gewischt, und Ölkreide, durchgerieben, fixiert, auf leicht chamoisfarbenem, fast weißem Ingres-Bütten · 24,1 x 31,4 cm Charcoal, with stump, and crayon, frottaged, fixed, on pale buff-coloured Ingres paper · 9 1/ 2 x 12 3/ 8 in.

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Relieffiguren · Relief figures · 1944 Kohle, gewischt, radiert und fixiert, auf chamoisfarbenem Ingres-Bütten · 30,9 x 48,4 cm Charcoal, with stump, erased and fixed, on pale buff-coloured Ingres paper · 12 3/ 16 x 19 1/ 16 in.

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Figuren in metaphysischer Landschaft · Figures in a metaphysical landscape · 1945 Kohle, gewischt, radiert und fixiert, auf chamoisfarbenem Ingres-Bütten · 31,4 x 48,8 cm Charcoal, with stump, erased and fixed, on buff-coloured Ingres paper · 12 3/ 8 x 19 3/ 16 in.

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Erinnerungsrest · Scraps of memory · 1945 Kohle, gewischt, radiert und fixiert, auf hellbraunem Ingres-Bütten · 47,9 x 62,7 cm Charcoal, with stump, erased and fixed, on light-brown Ingres paper · 18 7/ 8 x 24 11/ 16 in.

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Formen in Perforation · Perforated forms · 1949 Kohle, zum Teil gewischt, fixiert, auf maisgelbem Ingres-Bütten · 31,4 x 47,9 cm Charcoal, partly with stump, fixed, on buff-coloured Ingres paper · 12 3/ 8 x 18 7/ 8 in.

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Chinesisches · Chinese · 1948 Kohle, gewischt und radiert, und Ölkreide, durchgerieben, fixiert, auf maisfarbenem Ingres-Bütten · 31,6 x 48,3 cm Charcoal, with stump and erased, and crayon, frottaged, fixed, on pale yellow Ingres paper · 12 7/ 16 x 19 in.

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Gilgamesch beschwört den Schatten des Enkidu · Gilgamesh invoking the spirit of Enkidu · 1947 Kohle, gewischt, und Ölkreide, durchgerieben, fixiert, auf chamoisfarbenem Ingres-Bütten · 31,4 x 48,0 cm Charcoal, with stump, and crayon, frottaged, fixed, on buff-coloured Ingres paper · 12 3/ 8 x 18 7/ 8 in.

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Figurengruppe und Kammzug · Group of figures and traces of scraper · 1948 Kohle und Ölkreide, zum Teil durchgerieben, fixiert, auf chamoisfarbenem Ingres-Bütten · 31,5 x 47,6 cm Charcoal and crayon, partly frottaged, fixed, on buff-coloured Ingres paper · 12 3/ 8 x 18 3/ 4 in.

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Ritzfiguren auf Braun · Incised figures on brown · 1949 Kohle, gewischt und radiert, und Pastell, fixiert, auf gelbem Ingres-Bütten · 25,5 x 33,1 cm Charcoal, with stump and erased, and pastel, fixed, on yellow Ingres paper · 10 1/ 16 x 13 in.

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Drei Linienfiguren · Three linear figures · 1949 Kohle, gewischt, radiert und fixiert, auf lindgrünem Ingres-Bütten · 31,6 x 48,4 cm Charcoal, with stump, erased and fixed, on pale green Ingres paper · 12 7/ 16 x 19 1/ 16 in.

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Relief aus Gilgamesch · Gilgamesh relief · 1949 Kohle, gewischt und radiert, und Ölkreide, durchgerieben, fixiert, auf maisgelbem Ingres-Bütten · 31,4 x 38,5 cm Charcoal, with stump and erased, and crayon, frottaged, fixed, on pale yellow Ingres paper · 12 3/ 8 x 15 1/ 8 in.

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Dialog · Dialogue · 1949 Kohle, gewischt und radiert, und Pastell, fixiert, auf blaugrauem Ingres-Bütten · 24,1 x 31,4 cm Charcoal, with stump and erased, and pastel, fixed, on blue-grey Ingres paper · 9 1/ 2 x 12 3/ 8 in.

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Ritzfiguren in metaphysischer Landschaft · Incised figures in a metaphysical landscape · III. 1949 Kohle, zum Teil gewischt, und Pastell, fixiert, auf maisgelbem Ingres-Bütten · 31,1 x 47,8 cm Charcoal, partly with stump, and pastel, fixed, on pale buff-coloured Ingres paper · 12 1/ 4 x 18 13/ 16 in.

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Metaphysische Landschaft · Metaphysical landscape · 1949 Kohle und Pastell, radiert, fixiert, auf chamoisfarbenem Ingres-Bütten · 31,3 x 47,9 cm Charcoal and pastel, erased and fixed, on buff-coloured Ingres paper · 12 5/ 16 x 18 7/ 8 in.

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Relieffigur · Relief figure · 1952 Kohle, gewischt und radiert, und Ölkreide, fixiert, auf chamoisfarbenem, am Rand links perforiertem Ingres-Bütten · 30,7 x 22,4 cm Charcoal, with stump and erased, and crayon, fixed, on buff-coloured Ingres paper, perforation at the left edge · 12 1/ 16 x 8 13/ 16 in.

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Schwebende Relieffiguren · Hovering relief figures · 1949 Kohle, gewischt, radiert, und Ölkreide, durchgerieben, fixiert, auf mittelbraunem Ingres-Bütten · 48,2 x 31,2 cm Charcoal, with stump and erased, and crayon, frottaged, fixed, on mid-brown Ingres paper · 19 x 12 1/ 4 in.

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Schwebende Fächer · Hovering fans · X. 1951 Kohle, gewischt und fixiert, auf chamoisfarbenem, starkem Zeichenpapier · 45,2 x 62,6 cm Charcoal with stump, fixed, on stiff buff-coloured drawing paper · 17 13/ 16 x 24 5/ 8 in.

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Fries mit Montaru · Frieze with Montaru · 1954 Kohle, zum Teil gewischt, fixiert, auf hellgelbem Ingres-Bütten · 19,5 x 38,6 cm Charcoal, partly with stump, fixed, on pale yellow Ingres paper · 7 11/ 16 x 15 3/ 16 in.

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Skizze nach »Freundliches Phantom« · Sketch after ‘Friendly Phantom’ · 1952 Öl, Tempera und Kohle auf Zeichenkarton · 45,5 x 53,5 cm Oil, tempera and charcoal on drawing cardboard · 17 15/ 16 x 21 1/ 16 in.

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Montaru mit Gondel · Montaru with a gondola · VIII. 1954 Bleistift und Pastell, Collage mit schwarzem Fotokarton und chamoisfarbenem Zeichenpapier, gerissen, auf helltürkisfarbenem, an den Rändern links und unten im scharfen Knick leicht unregelmäßig gerissenem Karteikarton · 25,6 x 24,9 cm Pencil and pastel with collage (stiff black cardboard and buff-coloured drawing paper, torn) on thick pale turquoise cardboard, torn slightly irregularly at the left edge and lower right corner along sharp folds · 10 1/ 16 x 9 13/ 16 in.

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WILLI BAUMEISTER · Chronology

1889

Willi Baumeister is born on 22 January in Stuttgart. He is the third child of Wilhelm Baumeister, Master Chimney Sweep to the royal court of Württemberg, and Anna Baumeister, née Schuler.

1904

First tries his hand at painting.

1905

Leaves the Friedrich-Eugen Royal Secondary School with the lower school certificate and starts training as a decorative painter. His exceptional gifts enable him to complete his apprenticeship in only two years. In the winter semester he enrols in a drawing course at the Württemberg Royal Academy of Fine Art in Stuttgart.

1906

Becomes friends with Oskar Schlemmer.

1907

After passing his journeyman examination as a decorative painter he travels to Munich to study the painting of the French Impressionists and Hans von Marées. In October the Swiss artist Otto Meyer (later known as Otto Meyer-Amden) moves to Stuttgart. This marks the beginning of an enduring friendship between him, Schlemmer and Baumeister.

1907–08

Performs military service in the infantry.

1909–13

Attends the Art Academy in Stuttgart. In 1910 he joins the advanced class of Adolf Hölzel, who advises him to visit Paris. He stays there for three months in 1911, studying at the Cercle International des BeauxArts.

1912–13

On 12 November he rents a farmhouse at Amden, in the canton of St Gallen, Switzerland, for one year. In 1913 two paintings by him are included in the Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon (First German Autumn Salon), a survey of avant-garde art mounted by Herwarth Walden in his gallery Der Sturm in Berlin. He visits Berlin to see the exhibition.

Balkans, southern Russia and the Caucasus. He is discharged in December 1918.

1919

Returns to the Art Academy in Stuttgart. He and Schlemmer fight in vain for Paul Klee to be appointed Hölzel’s successor at the Academy. Joins Üecht, a new artists’ association that takes its name from a pseudonym once used by Meyer-Amden. The group brings to Stuttgart an exhibition shown by Walden in his Berlin gallery. It includes work by Klee, Aleksandr Archipenko, Umberto Boccioni, Georges Braque, Carlo Carrà and Vasily Kandinsky. Baumeister creates his first ‘wall paintings’.

1919–21

Designs sets and costumes for performances at various theatres in Stuttgart.

1920

Exhibits with Schlemmer and Kurt Schwitters at the Galerie Arnold in Dresden. Produces the first works in the ‘Painter’ series.

1922

Exhibits with Fernand Léger at Der Sturm in Berlin.

1924

Visits Paris, where he meets Le Corbusier, Fernand Léger, Amédée Ozenfant and the writer on art and painter Michel Seuphor. Participates in the First German Art Exhibition in Moscow, which travels to Saratov and Leningrad. El Lissitzky asks Baumeister and Schlemmer to contribute to his book The Isms of Art. 1926

Works as a typographer for the Robert Bosch company. Travels to Paris again in July. Takes part in the International Exhibition of Modern Art, organised by the Société Anonyme and opening at the Brooklyn Museum, New York, in November. Marries fellow artist Margarete Oehm on 20 November.

1927

Receives his first solo exhibition, at the Neuer Kunstsalon am Neckartor in Stuttgart. Hölzel arranges for Baumeister, Schlemmer and Hermann Stenner to be commissioned to paint a frieze in the arcades in front of the main building at the Werkbund exhibition in Cologne. Afterwards, the three friends travel together to Antwerp, Amsterdam, London and Paris.

Receives his first solo exhibition in Paris, at the Galerie d’Art Contemporain. The Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung (Large Berlin Art Exhibition) includes a section devoted to his work. He makes the acquaintance of Kazimir Malevich, who also has a separate display at the Berlin exhibition. Joins the Neue Werbegestalter (new advertising designers), an association of well-known fine artists, commercial artists and typog raphers from Germany and abroad headed by Schwitters. In October he accepts an offer to head the Advertising Graphics and Typography Department at the Städtische Kunstgewerbeschule (City School of Arts and Crafts, also known as the Städel School) in Frankfurt am Main.

1914–18

1928

Military service during the First World War takes him to Poland, the

Moves to Frankfurt and takes a studio in the Städel School. Begins

1914

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teaching in April and is appointed professor in October. His daughter Krista is born on 23 December.

Baumeister, Schlemmer, Georg Muche, the architect Franz Krause, the sculptor Alfred Lörcher and others.

1929

1937

The Galerie Alfred Flechtheim mounts a solo exhibition of his work in Berlin and Düsseldorf. He is invited by the Museum Folkwang, Essen, to compete with Schlemmer and Erich Heckel for a commission to design the interior of the museum’s Fountain Room. The commission goes to Schlemmer. Becomes friends with the painter Julius Bissier.

Takes part in the exhibition Konstruktivisten at the Kunsthalle in Basel.

Four paintings by him that had been removed from public museums by order of the Nazi authorities are included in the exhibition Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) when it opens in the Hofgarten arcades in Munich.

The show travels the following year to Berlin and Düsseldorf, and in the summer of 1939 to Frankfurt. Baumeister stores sixty-four of his paintings, and a large selection of his gouaches and drawings, in the Basel Kunsthalle in order to save them from confiscation by the Nazis. He takes part in the exhibition Origines et développement de l’art international indépendant, held at the Musée du Jeu de Paume in Paris.

1930

Travels to Paris for the opening of his solo exhibition at the Galerie Bonaparte, meeting Hans Arp, Carl Einstein, Christian Zervos and others during his stay. Joins the artists’ association Cercle et Carré, founded in 1929.

1931

Joins the artists’ association Abstraction – Création, founded in Paris to fill the gap created by the dissolution of Cercle et Carré. Gallimard in Paris publishes a small monograph on him by Will Grohmann. Private studies, and his acquaintance with the Frankfurt art historian Hans Mühlestein, deepen Baumeister’s knowledge of prehistoric art.

1932

In August he accepts an invitation from Hélène de Mandrot to stay at Château La Sarraz in the canton of Waadt, Switzerland, where he draws extensively. Other visitors include Seuphor and László Moholy-Nagy. At the end of the year he joins Kandinsky, Klee and Schlemmer as a contributor to Lebendige Deutsche Kunst (Living German Art), an exhibition at Paul Cassirer’s gallery in Berlin scheduled to be mounted in three stages. This will be his last show in Germany before 1945.

1933

Meyer-Amden dies on 15 January. Baumeister is dismissed from his Frankfurt teaching post on 31 January and returns to Stuttgart. He now earns a living as a commercial artist. His daughter Felicitas is born on 26 April.

1934

Travels to Zurich in January for the opening of a commemorative exhibition of Meyer-Amden’s work.

1935

The Galleria Del Millione, Milan, mounts a solo exhibition of his work that is subsequently shown in Rome. Makes the first of many excursions to excavations of prehistoric sites in the Stuttgart area and in the Swabian Alb mountains.

1936

A long-standing friend, the Wuppertal architect Heinz Rasch, puts him in contact with Kurt Herberts, a paint manufacturer in Wuppertal. Herberts defies Nazi persecution of modernists by commissioning work from

1938

Work by him is included in Twentieth Century German Art, an exhibition organised by Herbert Read at the New Burlington Galleries, London. Max Beckmann gives an address at the opening.

1939

His fiftieth birthday in January is marked by an exhibition of his recent paintings and drawings at the Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris. Meets Arp, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Kandinsky and Joan Miró during his stay in the French capital. He is travelling near Lake Constance when the Second World War breaks out.

1941

Cut off from sources of artistic stimulation, he works reclusively in a second studio in Stuttgart, at Diemershaldenstrasse 48, which he had rented the year before. Scarcity of materials makes regular artistic activity still more difficult. Like every other artist classified by the Nazis as ‘degenerate’, he is banned from painting and exhibiting. In the autumn he travels with his family to Verona, Venice, Bologna and Florence.

1942

Produces his first Afrikanische Bilder (African Paintings) and Reliefbilder (Relief Paintings), which include works on the subject of Gilgamesh. On New Year’s Eve he notes: ‘In earlier times I’d spend [New Year’s Eve] in cheerful company. For many years now it’s been the tiniest circle of people, usually me on my own, awaiting the chimes ushering in the New Year. That’s how it is tonight … Margrit [Margarete] and the children said goodnight at ten o’clock. Now I’ll gather together in the living-room the pictures I’ve painted this year. They’ll be propped up against chairs and I’ll act as judge of my activity over the year. 33 pictures on cardboard, as well as 2 on canvas’ (diary entry, quoted in Gottfried Boehm, Willi Baumeister, Stuttgart, 1995, p. 218).

1943

Schlemmer dies on 13 April. The house and studio at Gerokstrasse 39 in

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Stuttgart, which the Baumeisters have occupied since 1933, suffers bomb damage. The family moves to Urach in the Swabian Alb. He produces drawings and illustrations to Gyges (after Herodotus), Esther, Saul, Gilgamesh, Shakespeare’s Tempest and Tolstoy’s ‘Three Old Men’. Begins work on his book Das Unbekannte in der Kunst (The Unknown in Art).

is held in connection with the show. At this first ‘Darmstädter Gespräch’ Baumeister defends modern art in a talk replying to a paper in which the art historian Hans Sedlmayr had propounded his theory of art’s ‘loss of the centre’.

1944

His other studio in Stuttgart, at Diemershaldenstrasse 48, is also bombed.

Henceforth he will work almost exclusively at Urach.

Elected Deputy Director of the Stuttgart Art Academy. His painting Kosmische Geste (Cosmic Gesture) of 1950 wins first prize at the first São Paulo Biennal, held in the Museu de Arte Moderna.

1945

1952

From April he lives with his family in the artist Max Ackermann’s summer home at Horn on Lake Constance, where he finishes Das Unbekannte in der Kunst. In September he returns to Stuttgart. The following November he receives his first post-war exhibition, in the foyer of the Kammerspiele playhouse in Stuttgart. Participates in the exhibition Deutsche Kunst in unserer Zeit (German Art in Our Time) at the Städtisches Museum in Überlingen.

His first solo exhibition in the USA, at the Hacker Gallery, New York, comprises twenty-seven works. He takes part in the twenty-sixth Venice Biennale.

1946–55

Teaches as a professor at the Art Academy in Stuttgart.

1947

Arnold Rüdlinger organises Moderne Deutsche Kunst seit 1933 (Modern German Art since 1933) at the Kunsthalle in Bern, the first exhibition abroad since the beginning of the war to survey recent developments in German art. In addition to Baumeister, those represented include Ackermann, Schlemmer, Otto Dix, HAP Grieshaber, Ewald Mataré and E. W. Nay. Das Unbekannte in der Kunst is published in Stuttgart in an edition of five thousand copies.

1948

Takes part in the Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in Paris. Work by him is also included in a small selection of contemporary German art at the first post-war Venice Biennale.

1951

1953

Travels to Paris and Milan, where he visits the major Picasso exhibition at the Palazzo Reale.

1954

The Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, marks his sixty-fifth birthday by mounting a large-scale retrospective of his work. Chosen by himself, it features some 150 paintings. The Galerie Jeanne Bucher in Paris shows a selection of his recent work. In the autumn he resigns from the committee of the Deutscher Künstlerbund (German Artists’ Association), which had been re-established in 1950. Ottomar Domnick’s film Willi Baumeister is shown for the first time.

1955

Retires in February, but accepts a teaching job at the Art Academy for the summer semester. Visits Paris in April. Takes part in documenta I in Kassel. Receives the Gustav Klimt Award from the Vienna Secession.

Dies on 31 August in Stuttgart while painting in his studio.

1949

The Gruppe der Gegenstandslosen (Group of Non-representational Artists, called ZEN 49 from January 1950) is founded in Otto Stangl’s gallery in Munich. Its members, apart from Baumeister, are the painters Rolf Cavael, Gerhard Fietz, Rupprecht Geiger, Willi Hempel and Fritz Winter, together with the sculptor Brigitte Meier-Denninghoff. They will organise a number of shows over the next six years. The first is held in 1950 at the Central Art Collecting Point, Munich. A major solo exhibition of Baumeister’s work, including more than forty paintings, is mounted at the Galerie Jeanne Bucher in Paris.

1950

The exhibition Das Menschenbild in unserer Zeit (The Human Image in Our Time) is mounted at the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt. A colloquium

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Gottfried Boehm’s Willi Baumeister (Stuttgart, 1995, pp. 178–242) contains a detailed, illustrated chronology, compiled by Felicitas Baumeister and Jochen Canobbi and featuring excerpts from the artist’s diaries and other documents in the Archiv Baumeister housed in the Stuttgart Kunstmuseum.

Erschienen anlässlich der Ausstellung Published on the occasion of the exhibition

Willi Baumeister Arbeiten auf Papier Works on Paper 1923–1954 Galerie Fred Jahn, München 14. März – 20. April 2013 Simon Theobald Ltd, London 16 May – 14 June 2013 Simon Theobald Ltd 37 Albemarle Street London W1S 4JF Tel. +44(0)7970 629062 simon@simontheobald.com www.simontheobald.com

© Galerie Fred Jahn, München, 2013 Alle Rechte vorbehalten © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2013, für alle abgebildeten Werke von Willi Baumeister Text: Siegfried Gohr; Zitat Leonardo da Vinci, S. 12, 13, aus: André Chastel (Hrsg.), Leonardo da Vinci: Sämtliche Gemälde und die Schriften zur Malerei, München: Schirmer/Mosel, 1990, S. 385 Übersetzungen ins Englische: Michael Foster, München; Zitat Leonardo da Vinci, S. 21, basierend auf Leonardo da Vinci, A Treatise on Painting, übersetzt von John Francis Rigaud, London, 1877, S. 62, 149 Fotos: Helga Fietz, Archiv Baumeister (Frontispiz, S. 6); Walter Bayer, München (Taf. 1–57 und Ausschnitt Taf. 18 für den Umschlag) Grafische Gestaltung und Redaktion: Jens Jahn, München Satz: Vornehm Mediengestaltung GmbH, München Reproduktionen: mds Medienservice Agentur Group GmbH, München Druck und Bindung: Sellier Druck GmbH, Freising

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