Willi Baumeister

Willi Baumeister (* 1889 in Stuttgart; † 1955 ibid.) was a German artist and professor at the Städelschule in Frankfurt and at the Stuttgart Art Academy. He became particularly known for his amorphous formal language, which moves on the edge of abstraction.

Artistic career


Willi Baumeister began studying art at the Stuttgart Art Academy in 1905 while still training as a decorative painter. During his studies Oskar Schlemmer was his fellow student and became a close friend. The exchange with him is also repeatedly reflected in Baumeister's oeuvre. His acquaintance with Kasimir Malevich, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee and Hans Arp also find artistic echoes in his work from time to time. Nevertheless, Baumeister found his very own form of expression. Very quickly he moved away from a purely pictorial style of painting towards abstraction. However, his works of art can by no means be described as non-representational, but rather forms and figurative elements repeatedly appear in his painting that can be associated with objects or people. Although he received a call to the State Bauhaus in 1928, he turned it down and took up a professorship at the Städelschule in Frankfurt instead. Driven out of office by the National Socialists and finally banned from painting in 1941, Baumeister went into internal emigration during the National Socialist regime. Despite the occupational ban, he continued to paint and also reflected on this difficult time in his book Das Unbekannte in der Kunst (The Unknown in Art), which appeared in 1947. In 1946 he continued his work as a university lecturer until his retirement from the Stuttgart Art Academy. In 1949 he founded the group ZEN 49, which advocated a new beginning for art after the Second World War. Baumeister's œuvre achieved great fame in the post-war period, especially as abstraction became the trend. He took part in several biennials and also in the first documenta. In 1955, he died in his studio in Stuttgart while working on a painting.

Mauerbilder


In Willi Baumeister's early creative period from 1920 onwards, he reduced his pictorial content to geometric forms that had an architectural appeal. In doing so, he tectonically assembled the picture elements, supplemented by various materials such as cardboard or metal foil, in such a way that they appeared to be in relief. This group of works is today called the "wall pictures". On the one hand, this shows Baumeister's interest in Cubism, and on the other, his closeness to the ideas of the Bauhaus, which was founded at that time. With the Wall Pictures he gained his first international reputation. His approach of breaking down the pictorial elements into tectonic language of form and colour also permeates his later creative phases.

Ideograms and Eidos pictures


After his forced dismissal from his professorship in Frankfurt and the National Socialist exhibition "Degenerate Art", Baumeister began to focus more on Ur-pictures and Ur-types. Throughout his life he collected art of primal peoples and repeatedly took up these in his paintings - sometimes as an ideal landscape, sometimes as a reduction to a purely abstract sign. These so-called "ideograms" are based on the idea that written and pictorial signs can be equated, thus possessing the same symbolic character, and that complete reduction is therefore possible without loss of expressiveness. From the idea of the Ur-Typus, Baumeister developed parallel pictures with an organic formal language, which, in contrast to the ideograms, were clearly more colour-intensive. He himself called these pictures "Eidos pictures" (Eidos=idea).

The work on myth

The works produced during Baumeister's period of inner emigration go in a similar direction. Ancient Greek myths, Old Testament stories and the Epic of Gilgamesh found their way into his work as archetypal motifs. This continued in the period after the Second World War, when Baumeister reinterpreted these myths into archetypes of new beginnings.

Figurenlandschaft, 1942, Oil with synthetic resin and putty on cardboard on plywood, 40 × 50 cm

Vita

1905
Begins art studies at the Stuttgart Art Academy; friendship with Oskar Schlemmer, Franz Marc and Paul Klee
1906/1908
Training as a decorative painter
1910
Master student with Adolf Hölzel
1914/1918
Military service
1919/1921
Founder and member of the Üecht Group
1922
Completion of art studies; group exhibition with Fernand Léger in the gallery "Der Sturm".
1924
Stay in Paris; acquaintance with Le Corbusier, Amadée Ozenfant, Fernand Léger
1926
Marriage to Margarete Oehm; exhibitions in New York and Paris; acquaintance with Piet Mondrian and Kasimir Malevich.
1928/1933
Professorship at the Frankfurt Städelschule; withdrawal of professorship by the National Socialists
1935
Participation in excavations of prehistoric evidence in the greater Stuttgart area
1937
Works by Baumeister are shown in the "Degenerate Art" Feme exhibition
1939
Solo exhibition for his 50th birthday in Paris; acquaintance with Hans Arp, Joan Miró, Wassily Kandinsky, Sophie Teuber-Arp.
1941
Painting and exhibition ban
1946
Appointment as professor at the Stuttgart Art Academy
1948
Participation in the XXIV Venice Biennale
1949
Foundation of ZEN 49 (initially "Group of the Non-Objective")
1954
Solo exhibition at Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart
1955
Participation in documenta I in Kassel; solo exhibition at Galerie Ferdinand Möller, Cologne

Artist groups

New Group

The "Neue Gruppe" was formed in Munich shortly after the Second World War in 1946/47. Artists from the "Neue Secession", whose art was considered "degenerate" by the National Socialists and was banned, joined forces to make a new start. Among them were Max Beckmann, Willi Baumeister, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Lothar Fischer, Erich Heckel, Max Kaus, Horst Antes, Konrad Klapheck, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Max Pechstein and Fritz Winter. After the experiences of the preceding dictatorship, they declared a free, tolerant approach in all areas of the visual arts to be their primary goal. The association still exists today as the "Artists' Association Haus der Kunst Munich" after the "Neue Gruppe", "Münchner Sezession" and the "Neue Münchner Künstlergenossenschaft" jointly founded the "Exhibition Administration Haus der Kunst Munich".

November Group

The "Novembergruppe" was founded in Berlin in 1918, shortly after the November Revolution. Until its dissolution in 1933 when the National Socialists seized power, over 170 artists were members of this trend-setting movement. Initiated by Max Pechstein and César Klein, the association brought together artists working in the Expressionist, Futurist and Cubist movements such as Lyonel Feininger, Paul Klee, Alexej von Jawlensky, Willi Baumeister, Wassily Kandinsky, Otto Mueller and Christian Rohlfs. This syncretism also asserts itself in the unification of art, music, architecture, theatre and philosophy that the group advocates. Members asked for a say in matters of art policy, such as the acquisition of art for public collections, art policy and the provision of exhibition space.

ZEN 49

In 1949, the "Gruppe der Ungegenständlichen" (Group of Non-Figurative Artists) was founded in Munich, consisting of Willi Baumeister, Fritz Winter, Rolf Cavael, Gerhard Fietz, Rupprecht Geiger, Willi Hempel and Brigitte Meier-Denninghoff. A year later, the name changes to "ZEN 49", in reference to Zen Buddhism, which inspires many of their works. The focus on non-objective painting shows a turn towards artistic freedom and openness of interpretation. Abstract art should not only be perceived, but also understood. Together with other artists, especially representatives of Informel, exhibitions are conceived and the international exchange with like-minded people is promoted.