The Art Institute of Chicago commemorates the centenary of Bauhaus with an exhibition highlighting the output of the acclaimed German art school's textile workshop and its impact on modern and contemporary American art. Weaving Beyond the Bauhaus, on view from August 3, 2019 to February 16, 2020, features 50 works both on and off the loom by pioneering artists such as Anni Albers, Claire Zeisler, Lenore Tawney, Otti Berger, Gunta Stölzl, Else Regensteiner, Ethel Stein, and Sheila Hicks.
Emphasizing experimentation and the union of fine art and design, Bauhaus artists-or Bauhäusler-developed a curriculum pairing aesthetic form with utilitarian function. Many of the artists immigrated to the United States following the forced closure of the school in 1933, where they continued to teach in the spirit of the school's theories. Weaving Beyond the Bauhaus traces the dynamic networks of teachers and students as they dispersed across the states-underscoring the reciprocal influences, shared vision, and spirit of experimentation that infused their work. A number of the Bauhäusler found their way to Chicago, where they played prominent roles in education. The current Institute of Design at IIT, established under the name New Bauhaus in 1937 by László Moholy-Nagy, made the city a hub of innovation in art and design. Tawney, Zeisler, and Angelo Testa-whose furnishing fabrics are also on view-all studied at the school under master weaver Marli Ehrman. Art Institute Curator Katharine Kuh had long championed the Bauhäusler, having shown their work at Chicago's first commercial gallery of modern art, established by Kuh in 1935. Still other textile artists were affiliated with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where Else Regensteiner was professor and later director of the weaving department from 1945 to 1971. Regensteiner would be instrumental in adapting the functional styles of the Bauhaus to cloth.Videos