Bauhaus Diaspora and Beyond: Transforming Education through Art, Design and Architecture

Edited by 
Philip Goad 
Ann Stephen 
Andrew McNamara
Harriet Edquist 
Isabel Wünsche

A co-publication from 
Melbourne University Publishing
and Power Publications

Bauhaus Diaspora is a vibrant, pioneering account of how the centrifugal forces of history dispersed artists and designers worldwide after the Nazi takeover in Germany and the outbreak of World War II, some of them landing in Australia and New Zealand, and perpetuating the art and design spirit and practice of the Bauhaus. This richly illustrated book abounds in new material, and the result of a wonderful teamwork of an international group of scholars, attentive to the tremendous importance of education and artists’ role in it. An instant classic.
—Eva Forgács, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena

A highly original, nuanced examination of the Bauhaus in diaspora, which traces the multiple paths and circuitous routes that modernist émigrés travelled to bring innovation in modern art, architecture and design education to places such as Australia and New Zealand. This well calibrated, interdisciplinary study offers the reader remarkable insight into the work of key Bauhaus members and excavates previously under-acknowledged figures. Superbly illustrated with rare photographs, drawings and artworks, Bauhaus Diaspora is essential reading for anyone interested in the reach of the Bauhaus and its diverse afterlives.
—Robin Schuldenfrei, The Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London

Bauhaus Diaspora and Beyond contributes a fascinating and not well known aspect to the global influences of the Bauhaus. With its innovative approach to art, design and architecture via themes of migration, networks and pedagogy, this book places the Bauhaus not only at the core of today’s problems and debates, but it also presents the works and voices of Australian and New Zealand practitioners and teachers in the fields of art, design and architecture that were previously overlooked. When celebrating the Bauhaus centenary in 2019, it is exciting and entirely fitting that we embrace these Australasian stories to gain a fuller and timely picture of the Bauhaus and its global aftermath.
—Claudia Perren, Director, Bauhaus Dessau Foundation

Paperback
ISBN 978-0-522875-62-1
125 colour images
115 black & white images
288 pp
1300 gms
270 x 230 mm

Bauhaus Diaspora and Beyond: Transforming Education through Art, Design and Architecture presents an extraordinary new Australasian cultural history. It is a migrant and refugee story: from 1930, the arrival of so many émigré, internee and refugee educators helped to transform art, architecture and design in Australia and New Zealand. Fifteen thematic essays and twenty individual case studies bring to light a tremendous amount of new archival material in order to show how these innovative educators, exiled from Nazism, introduced Bauhaus ideas and models to a new world. As their Bauhaus model spanned art, architecture and design, the book provides a unique cross-disciplinary, émigré history of art education in Australia and New Zealand. It offers a remarkable and little-known chapter in the wider Bauhaus venture, which has multiple legacies and continues to inform our conceptions of progressive education, creativity and the role of art and design in the wider community.

CONTENTS

Foreword
by Claudia Perren

Introduction: Bauhaus Diaspora and Beyond
by Philip Goad, Andrew McNamara and Ann Stephen

    Case Study: Henry Pynor, Frank Weitzel: ‘Man’s Study’, Burdekin House, 1929
    by Philip Goad

    Case Study: Eleonore Lange (1893–1990)
    by Andrew McNamara

ORIGINS

Chapter 1: Reform Education and Bauhaus Pedagogy
by Isabel Wünsche and Wiebke Gronemeyer

    Case Study: Adolf Hölzel and Colour Theory at the Bauhaus
    by Isabel Wünsche

    Case Study: Paul Klee, Distel-bild (Thistle picture), 1924
    by Ann Stephen

    Case Study: Gertrude Herzger-Seligmann (1901–1977)
    by Ann Stephen

Chapter 2: Education for Architecture, Vienna and Beyond
by Philip Goad and Harriet Edquist

    Case Study: Ernst Fooks and Das Wachsende Haus, Vienna, 1932
    by Philip Goad

    Case Study: Slawa Duldig (1901–1975), Designer, Artist and Teacher
    by Harriet Edquist

DIASPORA

Chapter 3: Exile, Internment and Hirschfeld-Mack in Geelong
by Andrew McNamara and Ann Stephen

    Case Study: Quakers and the Bauhaus Diaspora
    by Ann Stephen

    Case Study: Georg Teltscher (1904–1983)
    by Andrew McNamara

Chapter 4: Bauhaus via London: Dahl and Geoffrey Collings, Alistair Morrison and Richard Haughton James
by Veronica Bremer and Isabel Wünsche

    Case Study: Simpsons of Piccadilly
    by Veronica Bremer

Chapter 5: Art Historiography in Exile: Joseph Burke, Ursula Hoff, Franz Philipp and Gertrude Langer
by Wiebke Gronemeyer and Andrew McNamara

Chapter 6: New World Bauhaus: Harry Seidler, Harvard and Black Mountain College
by Philip Goad

AND BEYOND

Chapter 7: Hirschfeld-Mack’s Role in the Postwar Recovery of the Bauhaus Legacy
by Andrew McNamara

    Case Study: Bauhaus Legacy in Europe: The Ulm School of Design
    by Wiebke Gronemeyer

Chapter 8: 131 UNESCO and the Struggle for Modern Art Education in the Mid-Twentieth Century
by Ann Stephen

ART

Chapter 9: Encounter and Deployment: Sydney Moderns and Bauhaus Ideas
by Ann Stephen

    Case Study: Frank Hinder (1906–1992)
    by Ann Stephen

    Case Study: Josef Albers, Homage to the Square, 1966
    by Ann Stephen

Chapter 10: The Bauhaus: Aspects & Influence
by Ann Stephen

    Case Study: Bauhaus and the 1960s Print Revolution
    by Ann Stephen

Chapter 11: Art is Education, Art is Life: Centre Five’s Bauhaus Precepts
by Jane Eckett

Chapter 12: Colour–Light Experiments
by Andrew McNamara

    Case Study: Udo Sellbach (1927–2006)
    by Andrew McNamara

DESIGN

Chapter 13: The Shaping of Design
by Harriet Edquist

    Case Study: George Kral (1928–1978) and the Gallery A Design Group
    by Harriet Edquist

    Case Study: David Foulkes-Taylor (1929–1966)
    by Julian Goddard

    Case Study: Experiments in Fibre Art: Indigenous Communities and Émigrés
    by Harriet Edquist

ARCHITECTURE

Chapter 14: Architecture Transformed: Émigré Educators, Brian Lewis and Fritz Janeba
by Philip Goad

    Case Study: ‘Austria in Australia’: Fritz and Kathe Janeba in Warrandyte
    by Philip Goad

    Case Study: Robin Boyd and the Bauhaus
    by Philip Goad

Chapter 15: Bauhaus Influences in New Zealand
by Linda Tyler

    Case Study: Peter Haythornthwaite (1944–) and the Elam School of Fine Arts
    by Linda Tyler

Conclusion
by Philip Goad, Andrew McNamara and Ann Stephen

Notes

Bibliography

Acknowledgements

About The Authors

Index