Herbert Bayer
Herbert Bayer ( born April 5, 1900 in Haag am Hausruck, Upper Austria, † September 30, 1985 in Montecito, California ) was an Austrian photographer, graphic designer, typographer, exhibition architect, painter and teacher at the Bauhaus in Dessau.
Life and work
After an apprenticeship in a commercial art studio and work with the architect Mangold in Darmstadt Bayer studied from 1921 to 1925 at the State Bauhaus in Weimar. Here he attended the preliminary course of Johannes Itten and later lived in the teaching of Paul Klee. 1922/23 and 1924/25, he learned in the workshop on mural painting under Wassily Kandinsky. After the final examination in 1925 Bayer was appointed head of the new workshop for printing and advertising at the Bauhaus in Dessau. He led the standardization of all printed matter a DIN and continued the case by. All printed materials needed for their own use of the Bauhaus were produced in the Bauhaus printing on designs by Herbert Bayer or students. Thus, the requirement for a new profession was created: the graphic design.
In 1928, Bayer left the Bauhaus and moved to Berlin, there to act as a commercial artist and art director of the advertising agency Dorland Studio. Bayer devoted time in Berlin also exhibition design, painting and photography and was art director of Vogue magazine, Paris. He was a guest of the company founded by Kurt Schwitters in the same year ring new advertising designers.
Herbert Bayer and its employees conducted after the transfer of power to the Nazis in 1933, especially in the exhibition industry also contracts for the Nazi propaganda. The Nazis used the trade fair and exhibition industry from the outset as a public appeal information and propaganda tool. The result has been over the years a few, but effectively staged public exhibitions. As the way for the Nazi exhibition industry applies the camera - ( 4 to 19 November 1933) Exhibition of photography, printing and reproduction, originally planned by the German Werkbund, but has now been taken over by Goebbels as patron. Contemporaries took it as a " gigantic show" true. Bayer designed for the first time for National Socialist client an exhibition catalog.
The exhibition People of Germany - German work from April 21 to June 3, 1934, the first already declined in the pre-planning to the Nazis; Patron was Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, the nonprofit organizer Berlin Exhibition - fair - and - tourism -GmbH in collaboration with the Reich and state associations. Bayer designed in his " studio Dorland " in an adapted Bauhaus style again the catalog of the exhibition. In the catalog inside he presented on 36 pages in a characteristic manner Typofoto - a mixture of high -tech show and rural - folkish idyll with pictures of Aryan- blond women and men steeled, work scenes and industrial landscapes. The Berlin exhibition People of Germany - German labor followed by two more: The Miracle of Life ( March 23 - May 5, 1935 ) and at the Summer Olympics Germany, ( July 18 - August 16, 1936 ) the three exhibitions together were referred to in the Nazi press as a trilogy. Until his emigration in 1938 Bayer worked for Nazi authority.
In 1937 his works were represented in the Nazi Degenerate Art exhibition in Munich. In the same year, he traveled for the first time in the United States, where he emigrated in the following year. Together with Ise and Walter Gropius designed Bayer in the same year, the exhibition Bauhaus 1919-28 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In 1946 he settled in Aspen / Colorado and began his work as an architect, designers of large sculptures and landscapes. He also worked as an artistic consultant to various companies and institutions. Among others, he worked for the following companies: from 1946 to 1965 at the Container Corporation of America (CCA ) and from 1966 to 1985 at the Atlantic Richfield Company ( ARCO ) in Los Angeles. In 1964, Herbert Bayer participated in the documenta III in Kassel.
1968 Herbert Bayer was responsible for the design of the exhibition 50 years Bauhaus in Stuttgart.
Bayer's photographs and photomontages as the "Self-Portrait " from 1932 and " Lonely Metropolitan " (1932 ) are among the most remarkable photographic work. The surreal photography " Lonely Metropolitan " achieved in December 2012 at an auction of Sotheby's auction house a new record price of $ 1,482,500 dollars. The recording of Herbert Bayer is thus one of the most expensive vintage photographs worldwide.
Awards
Other awards and honors include, without limitation an honorary doctorate from the Technical University of Graz, the Austrian Cross of Honour for Science and Art, the Ambassador 's Award for Excellence ( London) or 1969, the Culture Prize of the German Society for Photography ( Cologne).
Font designs
During his teaching career as head of the advertising workshop at the Bauhaus Bayer developed a unicase alphabet. He reduced the capital letters (upper case) and minuscule (lower case) to only one alphabet. The resulting sans serif typeface called Bayer Universal.
- Universal (1925-1930);
- Bauhaus (1925-1928);
- Bayer -Type (1930-1936);
Publications
- Attempt at a new font. In: "Offset", 7/ 1926.
- Herbert bayer. Visual communication, architecture, painting. The artist's work in Europe and USA. Otto Maier Verlag, Ravensburg 1967 (original edition. Herbert bayer painter, designer, architect, published by Reinhold Publishing Corporation, New York, 1967).
- I imagine no limits. Interview with Herbert Bayer by Jürgen Claus. Art 3'79 Report, Information Sheet German Künstlerbund eV, Berlin 1979.
- Photography between reality and assembly. Interview with Herbert Bayer by Jürgen Claus. Art 4'86 Report, Information Sheet German Künstlerbund eV, Berlin 1986.