Tuesday, October 23, 2018

Artist of the day, October 23: Herbert Bayer, Austrian-American graphic artist, painter, and architect

Herbert Bayer, (1900-1985), is an Austrian-American graphic artist, painter, and architect, influential in spreading European principles of advertising in the United States.

Herbert Bayer is one of the individuals most closely identified with the famous Bauhaus program in Weimar, Germany. Together with Walter Gropius, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, and Wassily Kandinsky, Bayer helped shape a philosophy of functional design that extended across disciplines ranging from architecture to typography and graphic design. Endowed with enormous talent and energy, Bayer went on to produce an impressive body of work, including freelance graphics commissions, Modernist exhibition design, corporate identity programs, and architecture and environmental design.

He was born in Haag, Austria, and apprenticed in a local architectural design and graphic arts studio. By 1920 he was in Germany and a year later enrolled in a recently established, state-funded school of design called the Bauhaus. Then located in Weimar, the Bauhaus came to represent an almost utopian ideal that "modern art and architecture must be responsive to the needs and influence of the modern industrial world and that good designs must pass the test of both aesthetic standards and sound engineering." (www.restorations.net/bauhaus/bauhaus.htm)

Though Bayer came to the Bauhaus as a student, he stayed on to become one of its most prominent faculty members. His design for a new Sans-serif type called Universal helped to define the Bauhaus aesthetic.

He left in 1928 and moved to Berlin where he opened a graphic design firm whose clients included the trend-setting magazine Vogue. During this period, he also created or art-directed a number of memorable exhibitions. As with other designers of his generation, Bayer became alarmed over the increasingly repressive political situation in Germany and finally left in 1938 for New York. Within a short period of time, he was well-established as a designer and, among other achievements, had organized a comprehensive exhibition at MoMA on the early Bauhaus years. He also formed important connections with the publishers of Life and Fortune magazines, General Electric, and Container Corporation of America. CCA's chief executive, Walter Paepcke, became an important patron of Bayer's in the years to come, beginning with an invitation to move to Aspen, Colorado, to become a design consultant for the company. Bayer also supervised the architectural design of the new Aspen Institute, and then many of its program graphics. Bayer remained in Aspen until 1974, when he moved to California. There he worked on various environmental projects until his death in 1985.

© 2018. All images are copyrighted © by Herbert Bayer or assignee. The use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained.


Mr Herbert Bayer


Bauhaus poster

1924, Design for a Cigarette Pavilion

1924, Design for newspaper stand

1925, Assuh Zigarette

1925, Catalog of Patterns, title page

1926, Invitation to the inauguration of the Bauhaus building

1927, Ausstellung Europäisches Kunstgewerbe

1927, Ausstellung Europaisches

1927, Cover of Bauhaus Dessau college of design, prospectus

1927, Schlesisches Heim," issue 1/2

1928, Bauhaus Magazine Cover

1930, Diagram of the Field of Vision

1932 Calendar cover

1932, Lonely Metropolitan

1936, Deutschland Ausstellung

1938, Envisioning Architecture

Harper's Bazaar, August 1940

1940, Noreen

1953, Poster, Divisumma

1953, World Geographic Atlas cover (For CCA)

1953, World Geo-graphical Atlas: great Britain, Scandinavia (For CCA)

1953, World Geo-graphical Atlas: Soil types (For CCA)

1953, World Geo-graphical Atlas: World population (For CCA)

1953, World Geo-graphical Atlas: Europe (For CCA)

1953, World Geo-graphical Atlas: Geology (For CCA)

1953, World Geo-graphical Atlas: Natural vegetation (For CCA)

1953, World Geo-graphical Atlas: Physiographic map (For CCA)

1953, World Geo-graphical Atlas: Table of contents, key and outline (For CCA)

1953, World Geo-graphical Atlas: Texas (For CCA)

1953, World Geo-graphical Atlas: World economics (For CCA)

1953, World Geo-graphical Atlas: Maine (For CCA)

1953, World Geo-graphical Atlas: The future (For CCA)

1953, World Geo-graphical Atlas: Solar System (For CCA)

1964, Great Ideas of Western Man

1968, Poster Bauhaus

1969, A 20 piece porcelain tea service

1970, Chromatic Intersection

1970, Chromatic Triangulation II

1970, Chromatic Twist

1970, Complementary with Gold

1970, Four Chromatic Intersections on Gold painting

1971, chromatic amassment

1973, Double Ascension

1973, Egress with appendix

1974, Composition Around Green Dot (1 of 2)

1976, Squares and their Triangles

1979,  Al-Aqsa II

1986, Articulated Wall

1990, Herbert Bayer The California Years

Container Corporation of America: Billions of powdered eggs

Container Corporation of America: Fire Steals

Container Corporation of America: Waste paper to package

Container Corportation of America: Old-new

Container Corportation of America: Ugly Duckling of the Office

Freedom of the Seas


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