The exhibition investigates the artistic relationship between Adolf Hoelzel and Willi Baumeister and presents newly discovered documents and material on the educational work
Modernism begins in the Stuttgart Academy with Adolf Hoelzel in 1905. There he created an artwork that is considered a pioneering achievement of the European artist avant-garde. Simultaneously, Hoelzel developed an art theory that later strongly influenced the Bauhaus via his students Johannes Itten and Oskar Schlemmer. Willi Baumeister shared his teacher's respect for students requiring artistic freedom and, after the Second World War as a professor at the Stuttgart Academy, instructed them, above all, on the fundamental concepts of visual design. The exhibition investigates, for the very first time, the artistic relationship between Hoelzel and Baumeister. Additionally, it presents newly discovered documents and material on the educational work of these two important Stuttgart artists. The Kunstmuseum Stuttgart owns the largest museum collections of both their works. The exhibition is the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart's contribution to the 250th anniversary of the Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Kunste Stuttgart. (Image: Willi Baumeister, Mit schwarzer Form, 1954, Archive Baumeister at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, C. VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011).