Oskar Schlemmer

Oskar Schlemmer , 1888-1943, German painter and stage designer. Known for his mechanical, geometricized forms, Schlemmer taught painting, sculpture, and stage design at the Bauhaus (1920-29). He created the Triadic Ballet to Hindemith's music. In sculpture he experimented with plastic relief in a style related to constructivism .

Schlemmer, Oskar (1888–1943). German painter, sculptor, stage designer, and writer on art. He was born in Stuttgart, where he trained in marquetry and then studied at the Academy under Adolf Hölzel, 1906–11. During the First World War he served in the infantry and—after being wounded—as a cartographic draughtsman. From 1920 to 1929 he taught at the Bauhaus, in the metalwork, sculpture, and stage-design workshops. Later he taught at the Breslau Academy, 1929–32, and at the State School for Fine and Applied Arts in Berlin, 1932–3. In 1933, however, he was dismissed by the Nazis, who declared his work degenerate. He lived in Switzerland from 1933 to 1937 and from 1940 spent most of his time in Wuppertal, where a manufacturer of lacquer had invited him to establish a laboratory for experiments in lacquer technique. He died of a heart attack.

Schlemmer had a mystical temperament and his ideas on art were complex. Some of his early work was influenced by Cubism and he showed a deep concern for pictorial structure; characteristically his paintings represent rather mechanistic human figures, seen in strictly frontal, rear, or profile attitudes set in a mysterious space (Group of Fourteen Figures in Imaginary Architecture, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, 1930). He rejected what he considered the soullessness of pure abstraction, but he wished to submit his intuition to rational control: ‘Particularly in works of art that spring from the imaginative faculty and the mysticism of our souls, without the help of external subject-matter or content, strict regularity is absolutely indispensable.’ His cool, streamlined forms are seen also in his sculpture. Schlemmer did much work for the theatre, notably designs for the Constructivist Triadic Ballet, to music by Paul Hindemith, which was performed at the Bauhaus in 1923.

In the catalogue of the exhibition ‘German Art in the 20th Century’ (Royal Academy, London, 1985), Schlemmer is described as ‘one of the most versatile artists of the 20th century, not only successful in the conventional genres—painting, wall design, sculpture, drawings and graphics—but responsive to the challenges of advertising and utilitarian art, and inventive in the devising of lively teaching models for the educational activities of the Bauhaus'. His ideas on teaching are expressed in his book Man: Teaching Notes from the Bauhaus (1971). Also available in English translation is The Letters and Diaries of Oskar Schlemmer (1972).

Schlemmer, Oskar (b Stuttgart, 4 Sept. 1888; d Baden-Baden, 13 Apr. 1943). German painter, sculptor, stage designer, and writer on art. From 1920 to 1929 he taught at the Bauhaus, in the metalwork, sculpture, and stage-design workshops. During this time he did much work for the theatre, notably designs for the Constructivist Triadic Ballet, to music by Paul Hindemith, which was performed at the Bauhaus in 1923. After leaving the Bauhaus he taught in Breslau and Berlin, but in 1933 he was dismissed by the Nazis, who declared his work degenerate. He lived in Switzerland from 1933 to 1937 and from 1940 spent most of his time in Wuppertal. Schlemmer had a mystical temperament and his ideas on art were complex. He rejected what he considered the soullessness of pure abstraction, but he wished to submit his intuition to rational control. Some of his early work was influenced by Cubism and he showed a deep concern for pictorial structure. Characteristically his paintings represent rather mechanistic human figures, seen in strictly frontal, rear, or profile attitudes set in a mysterious space (Group of Fourteen Figures in Imaginary Architecture, 1930, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne). His cool, streamlined forms are seen also in his sculpture.