HERBERT BAYER

Details
HERBERT BAYER

Bauhaus Book Jacket

Gelatin silver print. circa 1938. Signed, titled, dated and annotated vintage in pencil on the verso. 9½ x 7½in.
Literature
See Bayer: The Complete Work, p. 300, for a similar study and pp. 229, 281, 358 and 362 for a more detailed account of his design theories.

Lot Essay

Bayer's combined talents as a graphic designer, typographer, painter, sculptor, photographer and exhibition designer are evident in this image submitted as the book jacket design for the 1938 Bauhaus Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. A device he frequently used in photomontages for advertising, he also employed here. Bayer used a symbol of classical formality and beauty, the Doryphoros of Praxiteles with painted overlay of an internal system indigenous to all mankind, and placed it in a visual context of geometric forms (cube, ball, cone) that integrated it into modern life. Apparently, Bayer's design was never used for the book jacket.