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14/4/2005

Bauhaus and Experimental Photography

ArteF Galerie, Zurich

From the Twenties to the Forties. Vintage and Original Prints

For the visual arts, particularly photography, the period between the Twenties and Forties was one of the most fertile in terms of revolution and invention. It was a period that saw the foundation of Bauhaus in Germany and the birth of the Constructivist movement in the Soviet Union, while Dada and Surrealism came to prominence in France. A wave of creative ferment swept through Europe, one which was to provide an inheritance for future generations.

ArteF is proud to open the new premises with the launch exhibition “Bauhaus and Experimental Photography – From the Twenties to the Forties” an ideal visual narrative of the conceptual line followed by certain artists even though from differing backgrounds. Exhibit includes the Bauhaus with the works by Lux Feininger, Lucia Moholy, Xanti Schawinsky, Umbo together with the extraordinary and unique images by Eberhard Schrammen and his wife Toni von Haken who invented the peculiar photographic technique they named Foto-Grafik. Constructivism with Alexander Rodchenko. The experimental researches by Franco Grignani, Man Ray, Xanti Schawinsky, including the works he realized in the United States, and Luigi Veronesi. These artists represent the altogether European spirit of the vanguard.

ArteF opens its brand new gallery with a selection of 30 vintage and original works by the extraordinary artists:
Lux Feininger
Franco Grignani
Toni von Haken
Lucia Moholy
Man Ray
Alexander Rodchenko
Xanti Schawinsky
Eberhard Schrammen
Luigi Veronesi
Umbo

Biographical notes

Lyonel Feininger
Born in Berlin, son of the American painter Lyonel Feininger and brother of the photographer Andreas Feininger. He moved to Berlin when his father was appointed director of the Bauhaus in Weimar. He began studies at the Bauhaus, under Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Josef Albers, and stage design workshops under Oskar Schlemmer. He photographed Bauhaus stage and theatre productions. Between 1929 and 1931, his work was published in magazines while working for the DEPHOT photographic agency. He participated in the Film und Foto exhibition in Stuttgart. He took up painting and moved to Paris in 1932, where he remained for three years. Introduced by Umbo to DEPHOT in Berlin, his images subsequently appeared in numerous magazines including Das Illustrierte Blatt, Die Woche, Die Dame and Die Funk-Stunde. On his return to Germany he held solo exhibitions in Berlin and Hamburg. He later moved to New York, leaving behind the majority of his negatives, which were never recovered.

Franco Grignani
Architect, designer, painter and photographer Franco Grignani was born in Pieve Porto Morone (Pavia) in 1908. After graduating in architecture he turned to a career in graphic design, establishing himself as one of the most creative designers on the international scene. At the end of the twenties he began experimenting with the photogram, an experience crucial to the formation of his theories on light and form and, first and foremost, on visual perception. He was one of the greatest theorists on perception, which he researched by means of a series of photographic experiments involving direct shots, flou effect, distortion, negative/positive and overprints. The materials he used in order to produce such complex photographs included water, oil, fragments of glass and mirrors and paper. The direct photographs are taken from unusual viewpoints reminiscent of Constructivist research. His works form part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and are also to be found in private collections. He exhibited his works in numerous personal and collective exhibitions in Italy and abroad. He died in Milan in 1999.

Lucia Moholy
Lucia Moholy was born in Prague in 1900. In 1921 she married László Moholy-Nagy and the following year they made joint attempts to create photograms. In 1923 she moved to Weimar and gained practical experience with a professional photographer, whilst studying photography and printing at the Academy of Graphic Arts and Book Design in Leipzig. She produced portraits of figures from the Bauhaus School as well as architectural photographs of the new Bauhaus constructions in Dessau. In 1926 Lucia moved to Dessau and in 1928 she worked as a theatre photographer in Berlin. From 1929 to 1932 she taught photography at the Johannes-Itten School of Art in Berlin. In 1933 Lucia Moholy travelled to Paris and later to England, working as a portrait photographer. In 1940 she worked in the field of academic documentary (photography) as, amongst other things, an advisor to UNESCO and the World Health Organisation. Lucia Moholy died in Zurich in 1989.

Man Ray
He was born Emmanuel Radinski, but changed his name to Man Ray at the age of 15. He was born in Philadelphia on 27 August 1890 and moved to New York with his family seven years later. In New York he frequented Alfred Stieglitz’s gallery “291” in 1911 and attended classes at the Ferrer Center in 1912. In 1915, he took up photography, the medium for which he was to become most well-known. He began a lifelong friendship with Marcel Duchamp. The artist moved from New York to Paris in 1921. His first Rayographs (photographic images produced without a camera) were published in Les Champs délicieux, rayographies in 1922. The artist left France in 1940, shortly before the German occupation, and made his way to Hollywood, then to New York. He returned to Paris in 1951. Man Ray died in Paris on 18 November 1976.

ALEXANDER RODCHENKO
Born in St. Petersburg on 23 November 1891, he attended the School of Arts in Kazan, Russia, from 1910 to 1914 and then went on to study graphic arts at the School of Applied Arts in Moscow (1915). In 1921-22 he worked in stage and film design, typography and advertising, and continued to provide cover designs for a remarkably wide range of publications throughout the 1920s. He also designed the cover of Kino-Fot, the periodical of the Russian Constructivists which was launched in 1922. He took up photography in 1924. In 1931 he was expelled from the artists’ association because of changes in the party; he was forced to abandon experimentation in photography and devote himself to photojournalism. He stopped taking photographs in 1942. He successfully experimented with close-up photography, and “the lens of his camera discovered objects of unusual architecture, rhythm, and plasticity” in objects removed from their usual surroundings. Rodchenko died on 3 December 1956.

Xanti Schawinsky
Xanti Schawinsky was born in Basel in 1904. From 1924 until 1929 he studied at the Bauhaus School’s theatre and dance department and wrote comic sketches, “spectro-drama” (abstract stage compositions). He also worked occasionally as a stage designer in Zwickau. In 1925 Schawinsky began experimenting with photography. Between 1929 and 1933 he was a graphic artist for the city of Magdeburg and organised an exhibition in Berlin with Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer. In 1929 he produced a series of photographs of the Magdeburg Theatre. From 1933 to 1936 Schawinsky worked in Italy, as a designer for Olivetti. Between 1936 and 1938 he taught with Albers at the Black Mountain College in North Carolina and in 1938 he worked as freelance painter in New York. In 1942 he created Theme and Variation on a Face, a series of photographs of Walter Gropius and another of the female face. In 1944 he began work on his New York series. From 1943 to 1954 he was a lecturer in Graphic Art and Design at the City College in New York and at New York University. In 1961 Schawinsky took up a second residence at Lake Maggiore and he died in Locarno in 1979.

Eberhard Schrammen
Eberhard Schrammen, (Germany, 1886-1947) studied and worked at the Bauhaus from 1919-1925 in the metal and stone sculpture workshops. He met Toni von Haken there in 1919 and they married the following year. In 1925 he moved to the Gildenhall artists’ community. In 1929, together with his wife, he began experimenting with the “Foto-Grafik” process, an original combination of decoupage and photogram. He later dedicated himself to photojournalism.

Luigi Veronesi
Luigi Veronesi, painter, photographer, set designer and experimental-film maker was born in Milan in 1908. From 1924 to 1928 he studied painting techniques. In 1934 he became friends with Moholy-Nagy. He carried out research into photograms, abstract photography and solarisation and studied Goethe’s colour theory. He executed photomontages for the magazine “Casabella” and carried out new abstract photographic studies. In the late thirties he made a number of films: “Film no. 3”, “Viso-Colore” (“Face-Colour”), “no. 4 Studio 40”, “no. 5”, “Film astratto n. 6” (“Abstract Film no. 6”) and “Studio 41”, which have been lost. In1948 he took part in the “La Bussola” group’s photographic exhibition at the Ridotto del Piccolo Teatro di Milano. In 1951 he made “Film no. 9”, which was abstract and hand painted. Galerie Friedrich in Munich published a portfolio of 12 photographs and photograms. In 1974 he held a personal exhibition of photograms and photographs at Galleria Martano in Turin plus an exhibition of set designs, drawings and photographs at the Pourquois-Pas Gallery in New York. In 1980 he made “Film no. 13”, which was abstract, silent and hand painted. In 1983 he held a personal exhibition of photographic research at the Padiglione d’Arte Contemporanea in Milan. The 42nd Venice Biennale d’Arte dedicated two anthological rooms to Veronesi. In 1997 there was a rich retrospective of his works from 1927 to 1996 at the Institut Mathildenhöhe in Darmstad, at the Sprengel Museum in Hanover, at the Museum Bochum and at the Stiftung für konstruktive und konkrete Kunst in Zurich. Veronesi died in Milan in February 1998.

Toni von Haken
Toni von HAKEN (Germany, 1897-1981) enrolled with the Bauhaus in 1919, where she met Eberhard Schrammen and they married in 1920. In 1925 she moved to the Gildenhall artists’ community. In 1929 she and her husband began experimenting with the “Foto-Grafik” process. Then from 1933 to 1947 she collaborated with Eberhard in his photographic work. (1948-1970) After Eberhard’s death, she took a professional photographer’s diploma course. From 1970-1980 she dedicated herself to painting watercolours.

Umbo
Umbo was born in 1902 in Düsseldorf. From 1921-1923 studies at the Bauhaus in Weimar, 1921-1922 he attends a course run by Johannes Ittens. In 1923 he works as a painter, clown, production/camera assistant on a film. In 1926 Umbo develops photomontages for the trailer for Walter Ruttmann’s film “Berlin, Symphonie einer Gro?stadt”. He meets Paul Citroen. From 1926-1928 Umbo works as a freelance portrait photographer. In 1926 he makes the acquaintance of Simon Guttmann who employs him as photo journalist. In 1933 dissolution of the “Deutschen-Photo-Dienstes”, until then a permanent contributor, specializing in reports on dance, cabaret, theatre and film. Umbo works as a freelance photo journalist. From 1957-1974 he teaches photography in Bad Parmont, Hanover and Hildesheim. In 1980 he dies in Hanover.

Image: Man Ray

Media Preview: Friday April 15, 2005, 16.00 – 18.00

Opening Reception: Friday April 15, 2005, 18.00

ArteF Gallery
Splügenstrasse 11 - Zurich
Gallery Opening Times: Tuesday – Saturday, 13.00 – 18.00

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