A new book celebrating the careers of Bauhaus luminaries Gunta Stölzl and Johannes Itten, shares fascinating insights on how their brief but impactful collaboration at the school led to some of the most important advancements in textiles and art in the twentieth century.
Textile Universes, by Celina Berchtold, Mirjam Deckers, Annette Schieck and Christopher Wagner, was released in 2024 by The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Hirmer Publishers.
The exhibition that inspired the book was shown at the Kunstmuseum Thun, Switzerland in 2024.
When Johannes Itten, a respected Swiss art theorist and painter was appointed Master of Form at the legendary Bauhaus State School in 1919, he was already convinced that textiles had foundational importance to the study of all artforms. And, while he had no experience in weaving, he was quickly convinced by his German student Gunta Stölzl, that the weaving studio would provide an ideal hands-on “site for experimentation” for his theoretical writings, later captured in his books, The Elements of Colour (1961) and Design and Form (1975).
Stölzl, a self-described autodidact, rapidly acquired the necessary technical skills to operate all of the intricate loom systems acquired by the school. Meanwhile, Itten developed a range of pedagogical studies that drew incisive parallels between the attributes of weaving and modernist theories on colour and abstraction. In comparing Itten to the school’s other masters, Stölzl later recalled, “Itten was the most compelling, since he not only had an ideology and program, but he also went ahead and put it into practice.”
The synchronicity of the Itten/Stölzl partnership and its focus on weaving within both artistic and commercial contexts, however, was as brief as it was transformational.
Having been enlisted as Master of Form at the time of the school’s inception in 1919, Itten was obliged to leave in 1923, largely as a result of ideological conflicts with the school’s director, Walter Gropius.
Stölzl, who had also arrived at the school in 1919, and was effectively overseeing the weaving workshop within a year or two, was also pressured to leave the school in 1931, when her political independence ran foul of Germany’s rising far right.
While the two ultimately re-established their careers in Switzerland, they never worked together again, although they remained friendly throughout their lives.
The core concepts that came about through their Bauhaus collaboration, however, remained at the heart of both Itten and Stölzl’s lifelong involvement with textiles as artists, designers and industrial innovators.
“No one could ever write a history of the Bauhaus,” Gunta Stölzl once allegedly said to her daughter. “It’s just too complicated.” The book, Textile Universes, proves, through impressive and scholarly detail, that there are still, within the many faceted accounts of its history, fresh stories to tell. ■
OTHER ART BOOK REVIEWS YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED
- Bookmark: Memorable Murals
- Bookmark: Outsider Art of Canada
- Jack Bush Paintings: A Catalogue Raisonné
- Bookmark: New Book about Bertram Brooker
- Bookmark: All the Beauty in the World
- The Role of Textiles in Relation to Art
- The Quest for the Meaning of Art
- Quick Pick - J.E.H. MacDonald: Up Close
- Mary Pratt: A Love Affair with Vision
- The Role of Textiles in Relation to Art
- Surreal Spaces: The Art and Life of Leonora Carrington
- Early Days: Indigenous Art from the McMichael
- Bianca Bosker: The Quest for the Meaning of Art
PS: Worried you missed something? See previous Galleries West stories here or sign up for our free biweekly newsletter.
