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The softer side to steel tubing and leather at the
Bauhaus
show at MoMA, a must-see for anybody who appreciates the finer
points of aesthetics and design history and who is in love with
the idea of living in beauty, the designed environment at every
level. The house or apartment as sanctuary, refuge from the
ravages of urban decay. The romanticism of fabric as
nurturing; close the drapes on the graffiti that vandalizes the
wall outside! One realizes how important textiles and cloth
were at the Bauhaus. Weaving, with all its connotations of
Arachne and the spider, of storytelling, of women’s work….brought
now into the industrial age.
To those who mistakenly interpret the Modernist aesthetic as cold
and colorless, remember, before the
Wassily Chair
had a leather seat, it was first upholstered with textured
fabric. Mies had heavy scarlet drapes that fell sinuously to
the floor in the
Barcelona
Pavilion.
The Bauhaus show is woven through with the sensuousness and drape
of fabrics that lend nuance and softness to steel
and glass....and Gunta Stölzl made an art out of weaving; pattern
and color becoming a harmony of abstraction in her hands.
Gunta Stölzl arrived at the Bauhaus as a student and later was the
technical director of its Weaving Workshop and was the only woman
to teach at the Bauhaus. She took weaving to a new place
where art met technology, using innovative materials and methods
of production. Her training as a painter is evident in her
talent for designing subtle abstractions of shadings and geometry,
what Anni Albers, whose weavings are also at the show called 'her
animal instinct for color'. Stölzl herself acknowledges the
painterly influence of Paul Klee on her palette.
The famous Romantic Chair
In 1921 she collaborated with Marcel Breuer in creating that
strange and lovely creature of the imagination…the Romantic
Chair. the high-backed 5-legged chair, oak painted with
water-soluble color and of a fabric of wool, cotton, silk, and
brocade threads that were partially woven directly on the chair,
it simply vanished – lost for many years before it mysteriously
reappeared in 2004 and was acquired by the Bauhaus-Archiv
Berlin. Somewhere woven into the fabric is the fact that
Breuer and Stölzl were lovers at the time. The chair, also
called the African Chair, is an
example of the early Bauhaus interest in pre-modern patterns and
forms, but the legs are all de Stijl! Stölzl also
collaborated with Breuer on Chair (1921) of birch and black
lacquer with colored webbing.
There are her beautiful tapestries on show at MoMA: 5 Chöre
(top) 1928, fields of song, hues that vibrate and contrast,
yet remain contained by geometry. The beautiful Wall
Hanging (1922-23) is the subtlest symphony of color - taupes,
the palest yellow, mustard, a dark burnt orange run together.
See:
Bauhaus
1919-1933: Workshops for Modernity
,
MoMA
Read:
Bauhaus,
the accompanying catalogue
Read:
Gunta Stölzl,
Bauhaus Master, Monika Stadler
Buy:
Gunta Stölzl
rugs, DWR, based on works on paper
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Swatch-buckling!
Fabric for Steel Chairs Gunta Stölzl, 1936, Jute & Plastic Thread
(via MoMA)
Gunta Stölzl
Gunta Stölzl
rug, DWR |
