By Herbert Bayer, Graphic Designer: From the Bauhaus to Berlin, 1921–1938 (Visual Cultures and German Contexts)

One of the most extraordinary artists associated with the Bauhaus school, Herbert Bayer united graphic design, art and architecture in an uncompromising artistic vision that came to represent the bold aesthetic approach of the movement. A teacher with the school until 1928, Bayer went on to become a highly successful graphic designer in Germany, and later one of the most prominent figures in the 20th-century art scene of the United States. This broad biographical account, which presents previously unseen archival photographs and episodes from the life of Bayer and other influential Bauhaus artists such as Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and László Moholy-Nagy, follows Bayer through the Weimar Republic, Nazi Germany and finally to his exile in the United States. Specifically, Patrick Rössler reveals for the first time the ordeal experienced by Bayer between 1928 and 1938, when his private, commercial and artistic life was shattered by the terror and censorship in Nazi Germany. Shining a light on Bayer’s time in Berlin during the Weimar Republic, and his route out of the Nazi state, Rössler provides rich new insights into how Bauhaus artists navigated a protracted period of social upheaval and dictatorship. Revealing the tensions of an avant-garde artist struggling to practice during a period of repression, Herbert Bayer, Graphic Designer speaks to both the memory of those who fled Nazi Germany, but also the perseverance of persecuted artists and intellectuals throughout history who have worked under authoritarian regimes. Drawing on never before interpreted documents, letters and archival material, Rössler tells Bayer’s compelling story – documenting the life of a unique artist and offering a valuable contribution to research in exile experiences.