SCHLEMMER, OSKAR
Publié le 22/02/2012
Extrait du document
SCHLEMMER, OSKAR (1888–1943), artist; impossible to link with any
medium or style, his geometric images, noted for pure and rational depiction,
reflect the functional quality of Bauhaus* art. Born in Stuttgart, he trained as a
draftsman for inlaid work. Following a semester at Stuttgart's Kunstgewerbeschule,
he studied randomly from 1906 until the outbreak of World War I at
the city's Kunstakademie, passing much of 1910–1912 working in Berlin.* In
1914 he created murals for the entrance hall of Cologne's Werkbund exhibition.
An eager enlistee in 1914, he was twice wounded before 1916.
Returning to Stuttgart's Kunstakademie after the war, Schlemmer was student
representative to the Rat geistiger Arbeiter (Council of Intellectual Workers).
He campaigned for reform of the curriculum, but was unsuccessful at securing
an appointment for Paul Klee.* After he exhibited his work in 1919 at Berlin's
Galerie der Sturm (see Herwarth Walden), he joined the Bauhaus faculty in
1920. Hired to administer the sculpture workshop and teach mural painting, he
became director of theater* activities in 1923, the year he completed a series of
murals in the stairwell and hallway of the sculpture workshop (the murals were
defaced by Nazis in October 1930). He moved with the Bauhaus in 1925 to
Dessau and continued to direct the theater until his appointment in 1929 at
Breslau's Staatliche Akademie fu¨r Kunst und Kunstgewerbe (State Academy for
Art and Applied Art). His departure was likely prompted by Hannes Meyer's
determination to politicize the Bauhaus.
When the Breslau Academy closed in April 1932, Schlemmer secured a position
with the Vereinigte Staatschulen fu¨r Kunst (United State Schools for Art)
in Berlin but the job lasted only six months. Although his work was increasingly
defamed and his ability to earn a livelihood was undermined, he remained in
Nazi Germany. Unpolitical, he agonized over the attack on his art: ‘‘The horrible
thing about this cultural backlash,'' he wrote, ‘‘is that it is not directed against
works of a political nature, but against purely artistic, aesthetic works, identified
with ‘Bolshevism' merely because they are new, unusual, different, original.''
His art appeared in the 1937 exhibition Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art). He
died of diabetes in 1943.
Liens utiles
- Schlemmer, Oskar - vie et oeuvre du peintre.
- Schlemmer Oskar, 1888-1943, né à Stuttgart, peintre allemand.
- Schlemmer, Oskar - sculpture.
- POÈME Oskar Davico
- ÉVASIONS (Les) Oskar Daviéo (résumé)