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"The Bauhaus Group: Six Masters of Modernism," by Nicholas Fox Weber, details the life and works of famed architects Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe; painters Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and Josef Albers, and weaver and textile designer Anni Albers (Josef's wife).
Begun by WWI lieutenant Walter Gropius of the German Army, the Bauhaus school, which included a mix of architects, painters and master artisans of various crafts, sought an integration between the art and industrial worlds to benefit humanity. His conception included ideas about reconciling beauty, simplicity, utility and mass production (which was completely different from the contemporary standard of decorative elaboration). The school only lasted from 1919 until 1933 and faced constant opposition during its existence in Germany. However, the Bauhaus initiated global changes in the art and craft realms.
Weber's book explores six of the school's most influential people. In a recent NY Times Book Review, the author is quoted as saying,"In focusing on six of the people at the school who went far beyond the issues of one period or place, and were geniuses for all time, and in trying to sketch them as human beings, I have attempted to show how they created and lived out a dream that was never equaled before or since."
The author is a specialist in writing biographies about artists; he is the author / co-author of six previous volumes about Josef and Anni Alberses (who he met while studying fine art during graduate school at Yale).
