Bauhaus: 1919-1930s

The Bauhaus art movement was established in 1919 when Walter Gropius decided to unite the old Weimar Academy of Fine Arts and the Weimar School of Arts and Crafts. He invented the term Bauhaus as in inversion of 'Hausbau' - house construction, and his aim was to amalgamate the teaching of all the arts under the roof of design, with influence towards mass-production for the machine age. The style of the movement is thus characterised by its relentlessly economic, geometric design and by its value of resources.

The school concentrated on practical craftsmanship, using modern materials such as chrome and plastic to produce modern designs suitable for the mass market (for example, the well-known tubular-framed and moulded plastic chairs). In this respect it shared a number of ideas with de Stijl and the Russian Constructivists.

The Bauhaus School spread its influence throughout the 1920s and because of the illustrious teaching staff that it employed. Throughout its history it attained international recognition from the teachers it had housed such as: Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Wassily Kandinsky, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Oskar Schlemmer.

Our Art on Demand gallery contains the following Bauhaus prints, posters and canvases: