Gropius’s revelation was that taking art out of the hands of a wealthy minority and bequeathing it to the common man had become necessary it was the divine duty of the modern artist, and with a priest-like influence he led others toward his utopian vision. Romanticizing the image of a collaborative and classless union of artisans all building a common future was intentional. Towards this end he amalgamated the fine arts school and the local crafts school, calling the new institution the Staatliche Bauhaus Weimar, or simply, the Bauhaus.īauhaus Seal by Oskar Schlemmer, 1922, via The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Gropius introduced a ground-breaking curriculum into the school: the teaching of painting, crafts, and modern production technologies would all coalesce, molding the student into a radically new type of artist-craftsperson equipped with the skills to create in modern industrial society. Weimar is home to Goethe and Schiller, and eponymous with the de facto Republic established there in the wake of the November Revolution in 1918. The city then and now is quiet and conservative, and has a strong cultural heritage. Gropius was a public figure and a well-respected intellectual among a number of German cultural and artistic groups of the time. In 1919, after serving in the War, Werkbund member and architect Walter Gropius was appointed director of the Weimar Grand-Ducal Saxon School for Fine Arts.
Walter Gropius, founder of the Bauhaus photographed by Louis Held, 1919, via Sotheby’s
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