Dear Sophie -
His commissions included private homes in the northeast, a wing to the Cleveland Art Museum and perhaps his most important work, the Whitney Art Museum on Madison Avenue in New York.
Mom
Dear Sophie -
Feast your eyes...
LASZLO MOHOLY-NAGY was a painter and photographer of Hungarian descent and a professor at the Bauhas.
Born Laszlo Weisz, yet another artist of Jewish descent who changed his name. Trostsky, Bob Dylan, Frank Gehry... This isn't just a choice of artistry but an act of assimilation and prudence.
With love,
Mom
"Art does does not reproduce the visible, rather it makes visible".
Dear Sophie -
This magical, individualistic body of work is by the Swiss/German artist PAUL KLEE.
A friend of Kandinsky's, he taught at the Bauhaus for 10 years.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie
OSKAR SCHLEMMER was the celebrated theater teacher at the BAUHAUS from 1922-1929 before departing for another teaching post in Berlin.
The Nazi's later included his work in an exhibition they had organized titled "Degenerate Art." Humiliated, he retreated in hiding in the countryside and his spirit didn't survive the war.
Dear Sophie -
One of the great architects of the 20th century is ERICH MELDELSON. His Einstein Tower outside of Berlin is likely his most iconic work and an enduring example of Expressionist architecture.
Upon the arrival of Hitler in Germany, Mendelsohn moved first to London, Israel and utimately settling in San Francisco teaching at U.C. Berkeley.
Luise Maas was his adored wife, an accomplished cellist. A multitude of love letters to her are archived among his papers, documenting how in partnership they weathered the upheavals of the 20th century together.
With love,
Mom
"less is more"
"god is in the details"
Dear Sophie -
MIES VAN DER ROHE is the man.
Among his masterpieces are the Barcelona Pavilion, the Farnsworth House in Illinois, the Seagrams building in New York and the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, Germany. Mies was the last director or the Bauhaus upon request by his friend and collegaue Gropius, and had the devastating task of closing the school as the Nazis took control.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
WLATER GROPIUS is celebrated not only as one of the fathers of modernism, but perhaps his greatest achievement was the formation of the BAHAUS where he served as the director along with Mies.
He cultivated a culture of the best and the brightest, most forward thinking artists, architects and designers of the time, building an enduring legacy. Some of the faculty included Mies Van der Rohe, Wassily Kandinsky, Bruno Taut, Eric Mendelsoh, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Paul Klee.
When he left Germany to escape the Nazi's, he ultimately settled in Massachusetts and taught at Harvard.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
GERRIT RIETVELD was an architect, designer and ardent member of the DE STIJL movement in the Netherlands.
The Rietveld Schroder house was a commission by Mrs. Schroder who lived there her whole adult life, from 1924 until 1985. It may be visited in Utrect, a one hour ride from Amsterdam.
Next time!
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
THEO VAN DOESBURG was the champion of the DE STIJL movement, but when he starting painting diagonals, Mondrian quit. He designed the type above, but Vilmos Huszar designed the type below.
With love,
Mom
PIET MONDRIAN was instrumental in the formation of the DE STIJL movement in the Netherlands, founded by Theo van Doesburg.
MONDRIAN started his career looking at impressionism, fauvism, and cubism, and kept reducing his forms to their purest expression of line and primary colors.
What makes his work so enduring is not the doctrine, but his underlying spirituality.
I construct lines and color combinations on a flat surface, in order to express general beauty with the utmost awareness. Nature (or, that which I see) inspires me, puts me, as with any painter, in an emotional state so that an urge comes about to make something, but I want to come as close as possible to the truth and abstract everything from that, until I reach the foundation (still just an external foundation!) of things… I believe it is possible that, through horizontal and vertical lines constructed with awareness, but not with calculation, led by high intuition, and brought to harmony and rhythm, these basic forms of beauty, supplemented if necessary by other direct lines or curves, can become a work of art, as strong as it is true.
What an enduring legacy.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
CHARLES RENNIE MACKINTOSH employed the theories of modernism blended with the influences of Japonisme. When this Scottish archtiect designed a space he touched every feature, from the furniture to the textiles, down to the hardware.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
Here is some work from the Viennese architect and designer ADOLF LOOS.
Wow.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
In the mid 1800's, the Austrian cabinet maker MICHAEL THONET developed a range of forms by curving wood with hot steam inventing bentwood furniture.
CHAIR NO. 14 was a hit and 50 million or so have been produced.
Still feels as fresh as a daisy.
Thonet continues to be a family run business now in its 5th generation.
With love,
Mom
Klimt's colleague in the formation of the Viennese Secession movement was the architect and designer JOSEF HOFFMAN.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
GUSTAVE KLIMT was one of the founders of the VIENNESE SECESSION movement in1897.
There isn't a cohesive aesthetic among these Austrian works as with the Constructivists who were to follow, but these artists and archtiects formed their association to break from the academic conventions of the time.
The sensuality of his works surely raised a ruckus.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
The Russian abstract painter WASSILY KANDINSKY didn't begin his artistic career until he was 30 years old, after having studied law and economics.
His spiritual view of art was rejected by the more politically motivated artists at the time and he moved to Germany to teach at the Bauhaus upon invitation by Walter Gropius.
He ultimately settled in France where he lived the rest of his life.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
A strong female figure in the predominantly male Russian artistic community, LYUBOV POPOVA made her mark as a painter, designer and vocal participant. Her work merged the inspirations of suprematism, constructivism and cubism from western europe as well as textile, fashion and graphic design.
Sadly, her vibrant life and career was cut short by scarlet fever, a disease that is thankfully now addressed with antibiotics.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
The artist and architect VLADIMIR TATLIN never did get to realize his ambitious rotating glass and steel tower. It was conceived as a monument for the proletariat and the Third International, the international communist organization initiated in Moscow.
But he created an enduring vision.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
The great Russian Filmmaker SERGEI EISENSTEIN masterfully crafted montage sequences inventing a new cinematic language.
Sadly he had his ass kicked by Hollywood. He was probably too willful, too smart.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
ALEXANDER RODCHENKO was one of the founders of CONSTRUCTIVISM whose work took the forms of photography and photomontage.
Rodchenko collaborated with the poet MAYAKOVSKY and his wife Vera Stepanova among others. Revolutionary Russia was an incredibly dynamic period, where the movement and intellectual life touched upon art, architecture, graphic design, film, literature, theater and music
These images speak to the promise of a machine age and ideals for all workers.
Constructivism informed the DE STIJL movement in the Netherlands and was the bedrock upon which the BAUHAUS in Germany was founded.
With love,
Mom
Check out the contemporary feminist conceptual artist BARBARA KRUGER who also has something to shout about. feminist barbara kruger art - Google Search