Bauhaus Goes West: Modern Art and Design in Britain and America

Description

Bauhaus Goes West is a story of cultural exchange - between the Bauhaus emigres in the years following the school's closure in 1933 and the countries to which they moved, focusing in particular on Britain. Taking as its starting point the cultural connections between the UK and Germany in the early part of the 20th century, the book offers a timely re-evaluation of the school's influence on and relationship with modern art and design in Britain, concluding with the school's American legacy. Following the closure of the Bauhaus in 1933, teachers and students found new opportunities in Britain and the United States. Among them were Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, who simultaneously spent time in London before moving to America, an episode often overlooked but freshly explored here in the context of the interaction between German Modernism and British-based design reform from 1900. Other Bauhaus-trained artists - women as well as men - stayed in the UK and made important contributions into the 1960s. In America, Mies van der Rohe and Josef and Anni Albers had significant late careers, but, over time, the Bauhaus became a shorthand for Modernism's failure. Now, the centenary of the school's founding provides a key opportunity to reconsider how its values emerged and were contested both during its lifetime and beyond.

Alan Powers is a widely published author specializing in 20th-century art and design, with an interest in expanding the canon and reshaping the interpretation of Modernism, especially in the British context. He has taught in several university schools of architecture, and has been active as an exhibition curator, conservationist and journalist. He is the author of numerous books, including Ravilious and Co, also published by Thames & Hudson.

'In this comprehensive, weighty compendium, Powers traces the emigration of the minimalist ideology from Weimar to Britain in the 1920s, 1930s and onwards ... In re-examining the relationship with Britain, Powers re-writes a chapter in the country's history, asserting that the Bauhaus gave way to global innovation, beyond its prominence in Germany' - Aesthetica 'Very good' - Financial Times 'A vigorously researched and rewarding investigation into what became of the Bauhaus as its prime movers left Nazi Germany and travelled west' - ArtReview 'Sophisticated' - Times Literary Supplement 'Thoroughly researched and engaging ... A fascinating reassessment of modernism' - The Lady 'Sparky and rigorously researched ... beautifully illustrated' - New Statesman