Kunstverein Jena exhibition handbills (1924–27)
Kunstverein Jena (Jena Art Association) was founded in 1903. In some of its early years, the organization held exhibitions at the Bauhaus in nearby Weimar, and later they were shown in Jena at the Prinzessinnenschlösschen (also known as the Griesbachsches Gartenhaus). This series of 10.5 × 14.9 cm handbills, designed by exhibition director Walter Dexel, is a fine example of the “new typography” promoted by László Moholy-Nagy at the Bauhaus in 1923. Paraphrasing Dexel from his contribution to Bodo Rasch’s 1930 Der gefesselte Blick (The Shackled View):
“We no longer seek the so-called ‘beauty’, but clarity. The man of today has the right to demand that the information he needs be presented to him in a concise and clear manner.”
The fliers use a variety of the grotesks favored by Bauhaus artists, as described by Indra Kupferschmid in one of the first articles on Fonts In Use. These include Venus, Akzidenz-Grotesk, and not Breite halbfette Grotesk but the similar Blockschrift, along with other unidentified sans serifs.
Further reading: Jena und das Bauhaus [PDF] by Volker Wahl, 1979.
One-color version of the previous design with the program for fall 1925, feat. Johannes Auerbach, August Macke, and Georg Kötschau. “HERBST 1925” is set in the breit weight of Koralle.
1924: Oskar Schlemmer
Membership card for 1925. The annual fee was 6 Mark.
1925: Wassily Kandinsky
1926: Adolf Meyer. Schmale Etienne along the side.
1926: Karl Hofer. Coming up: Heinrich Zille, Arthur Segal, Man Ray
1926. “NEUE SACHLICHKEIT” is likely Fette Egyptienne or Schelter & Giesecke’s Schmale fette Egyptienne, later issued by Amsterdam as Egyptienne schmalfett. The exhibition showed works from Otto Dix, George Grosz and many other artists of the New Objectivity.
1926: Lovis Corinth
1927.
1927: Lyonel Feininger
This 1928 photography exhibition featured works by Hugo Erfurth, Lotte (and Richard?) Errell, Lucia Moholy and her husband László Moholy-Nagy, Walter Peterhans, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Umbo (Otto Umbehr) and others. 14.8 ✕ 21 cm.
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A poster maquette (pasted strips of printed type) for Neue Wege der Photographie is on display in Letterform Archive’s Bauhaus Typography at 100. The show only runs until June 26, but the online exhibition will be permanently available online to Archive members.
Walter Dexel, Exhibition poster maquette for New Ways of Photography (Neue Wege der Photographie). Collection of Letterform Archive.