BAUMEISTER, Willi (Stuttgart, 1889 – Stuttgart, 1955)
Born in Stuttgart on 22 January 1889, Baumeister trained as a painter and decorator between 1905 and 1907. From 1908 onwards, he studied at the Königliche Akademie of Stuttgart under Adolf Hölzel. There, he befriended Oskar Schlemmer, with whom he would execute a frieze for the 1914 exhibition of the Werkbund in Cologne. In 1911 he spent three months in Paris, studying drawing at the Cercle International des Beaux-Arts and in the following years he exhibited at the Galerie Neupert in Zurich (1912) and at the Erster Deutscher Herbstsalon of the Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin (1913).
On his return to Stuttgart after the First World War, Baumeister became a member of the Üecht group alongside Schlemmer, Gottfried Graf, Edmund Daniel Kinzinger, Albert Müller and Hans Spiegel. In 1922 he had an exhibition with Fernand Léger at the Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin, and many of their paintings were reproduced in the magazine L’Esprit Nouveau, published by Le Corbusier and Amédée Ozenfant. In 1928 he was appointed professor at the Frankfurt Städtische Kunstgewerbeschule, where he taught until the Nazi party took power. In the thirties he strengthened his relationship with the Paris avant-garde, held exhibitions with members of the Cercle et Carré group and participated in the activities of Abstraction-Création. During these years he produced some of his most important series, such as: Linear figures (1933–1938), Ideograms (1937–1938), Eidos (1938–1942) and African Images (1942–1955). In 1937, while four of his paintings were being shown in the Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) exhibition in Munich, he took part in an important group exhibition in Paris, Origines et développement de l’art international indépendant, at the Musée du Jeu de Paume. In 1941, he was banned from exhibiting his work. From then on he continued painting in private, devoting much of his time to studying prehistoric painting techniques. In 1943 he began to write his essay, Das Unbekannte in der Kunst (The Unknown in Art), published in 1947.
After World War II, Baumeister was appointed professor at the Stuttgart Akademie der Bildenden Künste in 1946. In 1950 he participated in the School of Altamira’s Second Art Week, in Santillana del Mar (Santander), and in the Darmstadt Conversations. The following year he obtained a prize at the Biennial of Sao Paulo, and in 1955 he received the Klimt award in Vienna for the entirety of his oeuvre. Baumeister died in his native city on 31 August 1955.
J A L M
<< back