Schmithals, Hans

Schmithals, Hans (1878–1964). German painter and designer, born in Bad Kreuznach. From 1902 he studied and then taught at a private applied arts school in Munich run by Hermann Obrist (1863–1927), a Swiss designer and craftsman who created some of the finest Art Nouveau ornament, and Wilhelm von Debschitz (1871–1948), a German designer, painter, and writer on art. The school (the Lehr- und Versuch-Atelier für angewandte und freie Kunst, informally known as the Debschitz-Schule) was remarkably progressive in its teaching methods, and is regarded as a significant precursor of the Bauhaus ( Obrist was shortlisted for the directorship in 1919). Obrist left the school in 1904, but Debschitz continued it until 1914. Schmithals taught stuccowork and the hand-painting of wallpaper, and in the same period he painted pictures in which natural forms are so schematized into Art Nouveau patterns that they come close to anticipating abstract art. In his designs for objects such as carpets and textiles he sometimes did use purely abstract patterns. In 1909–11 Schmithals lived in Paris, and then returned to Munich. He was virtually forgotten in the period between the two world wars, but there was a revival of interest in his work during the 1950s, when the Art Nouveau style in general was being rediscovered.