Dear Sophie -
Although born in Paris, SONIA DELAUNAY traveled to Paris when she was 20 years old, and apart from some stints in Portugal and Madrid, spent most of her life there.
She was a fantastic colorist and worked as a painter, fashion designer and created costumes for the theater.
With love,
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.
"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 -
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 -
To explore the roots of modernism, we need to turn to early 20th century RUSSIA and the SUPREMATIST movement.
The leader of the pack was the artist and theorist KAZIMIR MALEVICH, who was a radical, independent thinker .
His early interests were in regional folk art which then evolved to his modernist manifesto. It is very interesting to look at the works and relate it to the revolution that was rumbling in Russia at that time. We're talkin' 1917 baby!
When you look at Malevich, you'll surely see the relationship with contemporary artists such as Robert Mangold, Tuttle or Robert Ryman, exemplifying how we build upon knowledge as we learn from one another.
With love,
Mom
Dear Sophie -
Even in an institution as progressive as the Bauhaus, women were barred from certain disciplines such as architecture (pause for shock!), so ANNI ALBERS reluctantly turned to weaving. With the onset of the Nazi regime in 1933, she and her husband JOSEF ALBERS (a famed painter and colorist) moved to the United States, first to Black Mountain College in North Carolina which was an intellectual center, and then on to Yale. In time she became one of the foremost textile designers of the 20th century.
Mom
