Willi Baumeister (1889 – 1955) was a German painter, scenic designer, art professor, and typographer. His work was part of the art competitions at the 1928 Summer Olympics and the 1932 Summer Olympics.
Willi Baumeister completed an apprenticeship as a decorative painter in his native city from 1905 to 1907, followed by military service (fall 1907–1908). During his apprenticeship, Baumeister also began art studies at the Stuttgart Art Academy (Königlich Württembergische Akademie) (1905–1906), attended Robert Poetzelberger’s drawing class, and took additional lessons from Josef Kerschensteiner. In 1906 he resumed his apprenticeship and, in 1907, completed the trade test.
Following his military service, Baumeister continued his studies at the art academy. Dismissed by his teacher due to lack of talent, he switched into the composition class of Adolf Hölzel, with whom he studied until 1912, where he met his lifelong friend, Oskar Schlemmer. Baumeister took his first trip to Paris in 1911, successfully participated in a gallery exhibition in Zurich in 1912 and a year later participated in Der Erste Deutsche Herbstsalon (The First German Autumn Salon) in the Berlin gallery Der Sturm. There he met the expressionist painter Franz Marc.
In 1914 Baumeister had his first solo exhibition at Der Neue Kunstsalon (New Art Salon) in Stuttgart. In the same year, Adolf Hölzel arranged a commission for wall paintings at the German Werkbund Exhibition in Cologne for Baumeister, Schlemmer, and Herman Stenner. Prior to being drafted into the army in the summer of 1914 (until 1918), Baumeister travelled to Amsterdam, London, and Paris. During the war, Baumeister met the painter Oskar Kokoschka and the architect Adolf Loos in Vienna in 1915.
In 1918, still prior to being discharged from military service, he threw an exhibition with his friend Oskar Schlemmer at the Galerie Schaller in Stuttgart. Baumeister and Schlemmer campaigned to bring Paul Klee to the Stuttgart Academy, which was rejected by the Academy. Klee, for his part, would have been willing to come. In 1919 Baumeister became a member of the Berlin artist association Novembergruppe. The group was founded by Max Pechstein in 1918, immediately following Germany’s capitulation and the fall of the monarchy. It remained one of the most important alliances of German artists until 1933.
In Stuttgart in 1919, Baumeister took up the initiative with Schlemmer and other artists to found the artist group Üecht (Alemannic: genuine, true), which he left in 1921. In 1919 he produced his first stage design, which was followed by seventeen others. In 1920 Baumeister completed his art studies, worked as an independent artist, and participated in exhibitions in Berlin, Dresden, and Hagen. His popularity and recognition abroad became evident in a joint exhibition with Fernand Léger in the Berlin gallery Der Sturm in 1922. During these years, Baumeister developed professional relationships with artists such as Paul Klee, Léger, Le Corbusier, Amédée Ozenfant, and Michel Seuphor. In 1924 several of his works were shown at the Erste Allgemeine Deutsche Kunstausstellung (First General German Art Exhibition) in Moscow and, in 1925, he participated in the Paris exhibition L’Art d’aujourd’hui. Alongside his artistic work, he was also active in the area of commercial art and designed advertisements for numerous companies, such as Bosch and DLW (Deutsche Linoleumwerke)
© 2025. All content on this blog is protected by international copyright laws All images are copyrighted © by Willi Baumeister or assignee. Apart from fair dealing for the purpose of private study, research, criticism or review as permitted under the Copyright Act, the use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained. All images used for illustrative purposes only
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| Willi Baumeister, 1927 |
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| Three Stepped Figures, circa 1920 |
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| Planar Relation, circa 1920 |
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| Depiction of Apollo, circa 1921 |
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| Picture T 21, circa 1922 |
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| The Sculptor, circa 1923 |
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| Chess Players III, circa 1924 |
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| Chess, circa 1925 |
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| Female Runner II, circa 1925 |
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| Seated Figure - Abstracted, circa 1926 |
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| Swimmers on the Ladder, circa 1929 |
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| The Painter, circa 1929 |
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| Tennis, circa 1933 |
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| Ideogram, circa 1937 |
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| Colored Ideogram, circa 1939 |
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| Eidos Floating, circa 1939 |
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| Africa I, circa 1942 |
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| Jurassic, circa 1942 |
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| Sun Figures, circa 1944 |
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| Harps, circa 1945 |
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| The Prophet and Herodias, circa 1946 |
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| Happy Day, circa 1947 |
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| Owambo, circa 1948 |
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| Animated Slope, circa 1949 |
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| Amenophis, circa 1950 |
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| Black Metamorphosis, circa 1950 |
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| Phantom and Yellow Table, circa 1952 |
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| Montaru 9, circa 1953 |
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| Aru 2, 1955 |
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| Bluxao V, 1955 |
