Willi Baumeister and France, in: Willi Baumeister – International, exhibition catalogue Stuttgart/Duisburg/Berlin (2013), 294-299

Willi Baumeister and FranceBrigitte Pedde

From the outset of his career, Willi Baumeister was orientated towards France. He painted his earliest works in the Impression­ist and Post­Impressionist styles. After finishing his apprentice­ship as a decoration painter in Stuttgart in summer 1907, he went to Munich with his sister, Klara. There they visited an exhibition of French art, presumably the »Kunstausstellung der Sezession«, at which Impressionists were shown.1

A year later, when Baumeister began to study under Gustav Igler at the Stuttgart Academy of Fine Arts, problems arose, be­cause Igler was still aligned with traditional academic painting. Rejecting Baumeister’s style of painting, which, at that time, par­ticularly in his landscape paintings, was influenced by French Impressionism and Post­Impressionism, Igler threatened to expel Baumeister from his class.2 Baumeister’s difficulties at the acad­emy came to an end after his painting attracted the attention of another professor: Adolf Hölzel, a pioneering abstract artist, ad­mitted Baumeister to his class in 1909.3 From then on Baumeister was finally in a position to give his talent, and his basic need to go new ways in art, free rein without any academic constraints.

From 1910 Baumeister took part regularly in exhibitions. In Sep­tember that year he was invited to participate as a guest artist in an exhibition of contemporary French artists at the Württem­berg Art Association in Stuttgart.4 One of the pictures Baumeister showed there was »Boy on a Landing Stage« (»Junge am Land­ungssteg«), an Impressionist work he painted in 1909.5 (Cat. p. 106)

In 1911 Baumeister went to Paris for the first time at Hölzel’s suggestion to take lessons for three months at the Cercle Interna­tional des Beaux­Arts,6 a private art academy. During this first stay in Paris he was able to familiarize himself with the whole range of French modern art. At a Paris private collection he had his first opportunity to see original works by Paul Cézanne,7 the artist whom Willi Baumeister would most admire all his life. The Cézanne series »Bathers« (Fig. p. 31 left) remained a major source of inspir­ation to Baumeister until about 1913.8

Early in the 1920s the Paris art scene became aware of Bau­meister. The impetus was provided by an article on the artist, with reproductions of the group of works known as the »Wall Pictures«. The article was published in the journal »Das Kunst­blatt« in 1921.9 The author was Paul Ferdinand Schmidt, at the time director of the Städtische Sammlungen in Dresden and a vocif­erous advocate of avant­garde art. In his article Schmidt empha­sized the »monumental quality« and the »solidity of the pictorial form« in Baumeister’s work and interpreted their presence as the painter’s »reaction to the unfettered quality of Expressionism«.10 Schmidt’s article acquainted Le Corbusier and Amédée Ozenfant with Baumeister’s work. In his »Wall Pictures« Baumeister built up the picture surface tectonically by means of stringently clear, basic geometric structures and reduced the figurative aspect to minimalist geometric shapes. Baumeister had developed this con­cept of form and composition from French Cubism. He shared this approach with the French Purists, whose chief representatives in Paris were Le Corbusier (Fig. p. 31 centre) and Ozenfant (Fig. p. 31 right). Nonetheless, Baumeister’s »Wall Pictures« differed from the work of the French Purists in that they were conceived as reliefs; moreover, they were not supposed to be hung on walls but were to be set into the architecture itself.

Le Corbusier and Ozenfant asked Baumeister for photographs of his paintings and invited him to Paris.11 Waldemar George, a Paris art critic, would write about Baumeister in 1922 in the art journal »L’Esprit Nouveau«.12 George pointed out the »clarity« of

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Baumeister’s pictures and was pleased not to find »any tendency towards sentimentality in his panel paintings and wall pictures«. George’s article made Baumeister famous almost overnight in the Paris art world. His »Wall Pictures« met with enormous interest and acclaim. Baumeister wrote in 1929: »Some Paris painters later took over this term in their own work.«13 From 1922 onwards more arti­cles on Baumeister were published in Paris, by the art critics Michel Seuphor and Christian Zervos.14 Two years later, in Baumeister’s second appearance in »L’Esprit Nouveau«,15 the gouache »Ab­straction (Construction Red­Olive I)« (»Abstraktion [Konstruktion Rot­Oliv I]«; Fig. p. 32) from the »Machine Pictures« series featured in the journal as a full­page reproduction. This was special treat­ment indeed, as that particular art publication usually printed il­lustrations in black and white. The Baumeister gouache preceded »Vers le cristal«, an article written by Ozenfant and Le Corbusier.16 In 1924 Baumeister accepted an invitation to Paris extended by Le Corbusier and Ozenfant. There he met the two artists for the first time and made the acquaintance of Fernand Léger,17 with whom he would remain lifelong friends. A discussion between Baumeister and Léger recorded during that visit was published as »Notwen­digkeit des Modernseins: Ein Gespräch über Kunst vom Jahre 1924« about the necessity of being modern, albeit not until ten years later, in the journal »Deutsche Rundschau«.18 Another bond linking Léger and Baumeister at that time was the fascination both held for the machine and mechanics. As early as 1922 Bau meister and Léger had had a joint show of oils and watercolours, »Gemäl­de und Aquarelle«, at the Berlin Der Sturm gallery,19 but they had not had a chance to meet then. Baumeister had been familiar with Léger’s work since the »Erster Deutscher Herbst salon« in 1913, at which pictures by Baumeister were also shown.20 In an interview the Paris art critic Michel Seuphor – near the end of his life – suc­cinctly summed up the relationship between the two artists: »Léger always kept an eye on what Baumeister was doing.«21

On his visit to Paris in 1924 and on visits to that city which soon followed, Baumeister met other avant­garde art critics and art­ists, including Michel Seuphor, Christian Zervos, Albert Gleizes, Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber­Arp, Robert Delaunay and Sonia Delaunay­Terk, Piet Mondrian and Jacques Lipchitz.22 From then on Baumeister went to Paris frequently. He also showed work there and met the artists and art critics who represented the followers of Cubism and Purism. Baumeister earned praise from them for keeping his distance from Expressionism and adopting a precise, Constructivist style.23

From November 1925 until February 1926 he showed work for the first time at a Paris exhibition of contemporary art, »L’Art d’aujourd’hui«. The purpose of the show was to represent post­Cubist and Constructivist art at an international level. The art­ists whose work featured at it included Arp, Constantin Brancusi, Delaunay, Juan Gris, Le Corbusier, Léger, Lipchitz, Joan Miró, Mondrian, Ozenfant and Pablo Picasso.24 Apart from Baumeister, Paul Klee, László Moholy­Nagy and Theo van Doesburg made up the contingent of artists living in Germany. The work shown by Baumeister and van Doesburg was particularly acclaimed.25

In July 1926 Baumeister went to Paris accompanied by Mar­grit Oehm, who would become his wife later that year. They visited Mondrian in his studio; Michel Seuphor was also among the guests. (Cat. p. 257) On another occasion they visited the artist couple Robert Delaunay and Sonia Delaunay­Terk. Not long after they married, Baumeister and his wife again stayed in Par­is. They moved into a Montparnasse hotel in January 1927 and spent two months there.26 That area of the city was popular among artists and many of them had studios there. Baumeister had been so successful at the group show »L’Art d’aujourd’hui« that he was

now given his first Paris solo show, at the Galerie d’Art Contem­porain in boulevard Raspail, where his »Wall Pictures« and oth­er quite recent works were on view.27 Waldemar George wrote a foreword to the catalogue accompanying the exhibition, in which he noted the parallels between Baumeister’s development and that of French colleagues, notably Léger and Ozenfant. George took that opportunity to acknowledge the international charac­ter of Baumeister’s work.28 The solo show met with an extremely positive response from art critics, French artists and visitors alike. Baumeister noted in this respect: »Over 40 pictures, many temper­as, no sales, a great deal of interest from French painters and ac­claim, Léger, Corbusier, Lipchitz, W. George, Christian Zervos. I am told I am currently the best of the German painters. I did approx. 25 temperas in very subtle colours, like never before. Am left with the impression: not only must one produce good things, but (unfor­tunately) many of them to get anywhere. Corbusier and Léger very friendly.«29 The »Berliner Tageblatt« of 28 January 1927 reported: »Willi Baumeister, who is affiliated with the Bauhaus, has shown works in the Contemporary Art Gallery. After a Paul Klee show, al­beit a smaller one, last year, this is the second public appearance of the idea informing the Bauhaus on French soil.«30 Since being successful in Paris was worth twice as much as a triumph else­where, both the German and French press and the American and British press reported on the show.31 What is more, the success of the Paris show opened doors for Baumeister at other important galleries.32

How difficult it often was for foreign artists to gain a foothold in the Paris art scene since the vast superiority of the local artists tended to be taken for granted there, is exemplified by an arti­cle written by Zervos on the occasion of the show at the Galerie d’Art Contemporain. Although Zervos liked Baumeister’s work in general, and even said so in his article, he went on to state that he preferred Baumeister’s »Wall Pictures« to his »Easel Pictures« be­cause the former built on Léger and Ozenfant. Will Grohmann, on the other hand, rightly insisted once again in an article published in 1930 that it was simply a case of contemporaneous stylistic development.33

While staying in Paris in 1927, Baumeister and Hans Arp both worked on the sole issue ever to appear of »Documents Interna­tionaux de L’Esprit Nouveau«.34 Baumeister was then even toying with the idea of moving to Paris. »Léger takes issue with my desire to settle in Paris: you must live in Berlin, form a group there with others«,35 noted Baumeister at the time in his diary.

Even after Baumeister had become a professor in Frankfurt am Main (1928 – 33), he continued to maintain close ties with fellow artists in Paris. Baumeister became a member of Cercle et Carré, a group of Paris artists founded in 1929 by Michel Seuphor and Joaquín Torres García, a Uruguayan painter, as a reaction to the well­organized Surrealists. Although the group existed only until 1931, it did succeed in organizing the »Première Exposition Interna­tionale du Groupe ›Cercle et Carré‹«, at Galerie 23 in rue La Boétie, which caused quite a stir. That 1930 Paris exhibition is believed to be the first group show anywhere featuring abstract art. Along­side Willi Baumeister, the participating artists included Hans Arp, Walter Gropius, Wassily Kandinsky, Le Corbusier, Fernand Léger, Piet Mondrian, Kurt Schwitters and Sophie Taeuber­Arp. In paral­lel, Baumeister had his second solo show in Paris, at the Galerie Editions Bonaparte in April 1930.36

A year later, in 1931, Cercle et Carré merged with Abstraction – Création, a group of artists founded by Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner. The aim of this group, of which Baumeister was also a member, was to provide a forum for non­representational art. For this reason »Cahiers d’Art« published several articles on

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Willi Baumeister, Josef Albers, László Moholy­Nagy and Kurt Schwitters.37 That year, Christian Zervos, the publisher of »Cahiers d’Art«, invited Baumeister to write an article on abstract painting, titled »Enquête sur l’art abstrait: Réponse de Willi Baumeister«.38

A Baumeister monograph written by Will Grohmann with 24 illustrations was published in Paris in the Gallimard series »Les Peintres Nouveaux«.39 André Malraux was the general editor of the series at the time. »Handstand« (Cat. p. 219 bottom) from the »Sport Pictures I« series was featured on the front cover. Paul Klee40 and Baumeister were the only foreign artists who were not residents of Paris to be accepted for this series of monographs. A book on Baumeister, also written in French, had been published not long before in Antwerp, in the »Sélection« series. It included essays by Arp, Grohmann, Le Corbusier, Léger, Seuphor, Zervos, among others.41 When it was published Le Corbusier wrote a letter to Baumeister expressing the esteem he felt for the German artist: »Dear Baumeister, I am delighted to see the strong performance of your works assembled here. All this is enormously pictorial. Your drawings are very fine. Since you started out in 1920 you have been both sound and interesting. The future is bound to be yours.«42 The relationship between Baumeister and Le Corbusier was marked by mutual esteem. Le Corbusier fitted a »Wall Picture« and other 1920s Baumeister paintings as architectural features into houses he designed for »Die Wohnung«, an internationally important Werk­bund exhibition mounted in Stuttgart in 1927, which included the building of the Weissenhof Housing Estate there.43 Thanking Bau­meister for sending him the »Sélection« monograph, Kandinsky wrote to him: »About a year ago I was in Paris briefly and noticed while there, too, that the French are very much interested in you. And there are only very few German artists who are taken serious­ly there, which, after all (between you and me), is hardly surpris­ing. And for the following reason: what is easy for a Frenchman is difficult for a German artist – crossing the border. He [the German artist] meets with scepticism a priori and must have the authority to turn that scepticism round and break it down once and for all.«44

Even after the National Socialists came to power Baumeister was able to maintain – albeit with some difficulty by then – his links with Paris. In summer 1937, after Baumeister’s works had been re­moved from German museums and only a few days after the notor­ious »Entartete Kunst« exhibition of »degenerate Art« had opened in Munich with four of his paintings in it, he still managed to show work in Paris, at »Origines et Développement de L’Art Internation­al Indépendant«, an exhibition at the Musée du Jeu de Paume. This was a show mounted with the laudable agenda of standing up to the nationalist spirit that marred the concurrent Paris World Exposition.45 Baumeister showed a new painting, »Figures on a Yel­low Ground« (»Figuren auf gelbem Grund«; Fig. p. 34), at the Jeu de Paume exhibition.46 Considering the risk he was running of a clash with the National Socialist regime, he dared send only one pic­ture, admittedly quite a large one. His painting was hung in a room along with works by Arp, Delaunay, Max Ernst, Kandinsky, Miró, Mondrian, Ozenfant and Yves Tanguy.47 That exhibition included almost all the great avant­garde names of the day, among them Georges Braque, Marc Chagall, Gris, Klee, Léger, Henri Matisse and Picasso.48 Bau meister’s request that his painting should remain in Paris after the exhibition closed was mistakenly over­looked. The painting was sent back to Germany and, to save it from being confiscated by the German customs, Baumeister had to declare it as stage decoration.49

January 1939 saw Baumeister’s last solo show before the second world war. The venue was the Galerie Jeanne Bucher in Paris and the vernissage happened to coincide with the artist’s 50th birthday. Jeanne Bucher, who had a professional friendship

with Baumeister, would soon afterwards succeed, although with great difficulty, in keeping her gallery in the boulevard Montpar­nasse open even during the German occupation of Paris. Since the mid­1930s she had shown the work of leading exponents of the French and international avant­garde.50 The Baumeister exhibi­tion was called »Toiles et Aquarelles« and included canvases and watercolours. Later he would write about it: »In January 1939 the Galerie Bucher in Paris mounted an exhibition without fully under­standing the risks associated with it. The show opened on my 50th birthday with some pictures on cardboard in a suitcase, and some that had been sent earlier. […] I was able to answer in person questions about the risk I was running for my recklessness asked by, among others, Le Corbusier, with whom I have been friends for years.«51 Since repressive measures were to be expected in Germany, the press was asked not to write about the show.52 That is probably also the reason why no accompanying catalogue was issued. Regardless of all the precautions taken, numerous distin­guished visitors were seen at the exhibition, notably avant­garde artists. The vernissage was attended by Joan Miró, Le Corbusier, Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber­Arp as well as Wassily and Nina Kandinsky.53 Max Ernst and Georges Braque made a point of com­menting positively on the works displayed.54 Even Peggy Guggen­heim, who was living in London at the time, visited the exhibition, as Baumeister noted in his diary.55

The tense political situation did not prevent Baumeister from exhibiting work from June to July that year, only weeks before the Second World War broke out, at the first exhibition of non­ representational art organized by the Salon des Réalités Nou­velles, at the Galerie Charpentier in Paris. Again the big avant­garde names were among the 64 artists featured. By August that year the Paris museums had closed because of the threat of war.56

Until hostilities began the ties Baumeister had forged with the Paris art scene were not severed, even under such tremen­dous strain. While Paris was occupied by the German Wehrmacht, Baumeister still managed to communicate, albeit only sporadically and indirectly through friends, first of all with his Paris art dealer, Jeanne Bucher, and with Le Corbusier, Christian Zervos, among others.57 How Baumeister occasionally managed this is shown by diary entries dated from that period. Herbert Herrmann, an art his­torian and a good friend of Baumeister’s, was stationed in Paris as the general editor of a military gazette and he helped Baumeister to maintain those contacts.58 In February 1943 Baumeister wrote: »Dr Herrmann reports in a letter that he projected slides, photo­graphic transparencies, for Zervos and friends, I don’t yet know who that entails, and showed an accompanying series of photos. ›I am to send greetings from all sides with great delight and recog­nition for the development and, as it was said, for the emancipation to a style of your own of particular quality. So complete approv­al.‹«59 In November 1943 he noted: »In the evening Dr Herr mann must go back to Paris, where he works as a soldier for a military gazette. I shall hand over to him the Saul cycle, 44 drawings, after passages from 1 Samuel (Bible). I hope this important work won’t be lost although dispatching it to Paris in this way is rather risky. Herrmann wants to show these drawings to some acquaintances there.«60 In January 1944 he was able to note: »Dr Herr mann com­ing from Paris on leave. He reports in person: [Georges] Braque, who has looked at the Saul drawings, and who sends his regards, highly approving.«61

After the Second World War ended Willi Baumeister was an important person in West Germany, not only as an artist but also because of his conduct and his moral integrity during the Nazi reign of terror. Despite all the difficulties he incurred during the time he was forbidden to work and exhibit work, in his further

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creative development he did not lose touch with the international avant­garde. Those were also the reasons why his old friends in Paris and the French press continued to esteem him so highly after the war. Baumeister’s art links and ties of personal friendship with Paris would also be reinstated through official channels when rela­tions between Germany and France were restored.

Greetings from Le Corbusier reached Baumeister by autumn 1945. From 1948 onwards he was again in touch with Léger,62 who had spent the war years in the US. On an excursion to Paris with students, Baumeister visited Léger in his studio. (Cat. p. 256) He also wrote a foreword to the catalogue accompanying the Léger retrospective that toured several German cities in 1949. Léger com­mented on Baumeister’s essay as follows: »[…] one of the best to have written about my work. I am very satisfied with it.« Léger even joined the art dealer Daniel­Henry Kahnweiler in ensuring that Baumeister’s catalogue essay was translated into French for the journal »L’Âge Nouveau«.63

By that time articles on Baumeister were again appearing in the French press. In March 1948 he noted in his diary: »›Arts‹ writes ›le grand peintre allemand‹, ›Opera‹ writes ›le Picasso allemand‹! Since I have not yet had another exhibition in Paris, it is astonish­ing that my reputation has stayed so good in Paris throughout the Nazi era and even seems to have been enhanced.« 64

Not long afterwards, in July and August 1948, Baumeister was able to show work at the second, post­war Salon des Realités Nouvelles exhibition, at the Palais des Beaux­Arts de la Ville de Paris – the first to display German art in Paris after the Sec­ond World War.65 Baumeister was represented by four paintings: »Rouge orange«, »Composition«, »Départ en bleu« and »Souve­nir à Corot«, the fruits of the last ten years of work.66 He was also one of those responsible for choosing works to be shown in the German section.67 A French government administrative order per­mitting German artists to exhibit in France again was issued only the month before the exhibition opened.68

In October that year the Kunsthalle Karlsruhe was presented with 90 French prints by the head of the Division de l’Education Publique in the French occupation zone at a festive ceremony. The gift of state included etchings by Chagall and prints by Pierre Bonnard, Braque, Gris, Léger, Aristide Maillol, André Masson and Matisse. Eighteen Picasso etchings and lithographs formed the nucleus of this collection.69 In return, »Jour heureux« (Cat. p. 176), a painting that Baumeister had executed the year before, was pre­sented to the French authorities. Baumeister wrote about this to the art critic Will Grohmann: »[…] after the exhibition in freiburg has closed, my picture will hang in the Paris museum. The title of my picture was changed by Jardot after some thought on the matter from ›Beach Picture‹ (›strandbild‹) to ›jour heureux‹. […] I regard this art exchange as important and also as gratifying for German art.«70 This event demonstrates how vitally important Bau­meister was thought to be, both as an artist and as a man, to the process of forging relations again between Germany and France.

The doors of fellow artists, critics, gallerists and collectors in Paris were opened to Baumeister before they were to any other German artist.71 Baumeister was, in fact, the first German artist to have a solo show in France after the war. It ran from early De­cember 1949 until February 1950 at the renowned Galerie Jeanne Bucher in the boulevard du Montparnasse, the same Paris gallery that had hosted the last, prewar Baumeister solo show more than ten years before. Forty­four Baumeister works were exhibited and eight of them were sold. The show met with a positive response in the French press. A number of journals published articles on Baumeister.72 To mark the occasion Léger wrote in »L’Âge Nou­veau«: »As I see it the name Baumeister occupies an extremely

important place among modern German artists. Indeed Bau meister represents – when one considers his work – German art of an in­ternational character. His art has always developed with reference to the art of all times and peoples – ranging from the Assyrians to Paul Klee, Kandinsky and Miró. And, sidestepping Expression­ism, he resolutely went his own very independent and distinctive way. […] Today I am very glad indeed that our friendship has sur­vived alive and kicking despite borders and differing ideas of aes­thetics. I am happy to note that somehow we always managed to remain in contact with each other. His return to Paris reminds me of the time we first met there so long ago. Le Corbusier was there with us. And just as we did then, we welcome him – both as an art­ist and as a man – in friendship.«73

The exhibition was also widely acclaimed in Germany and was perceived as being of great cultural and political importance. Nonetheless, despite Baumeister’s success, there were some who had prized his 1920s work as art that was clear in its formal lan­guage, objective and »anti­Expressionist«74 but deplored the way his style had gone on to develop. One detractor even wrote that Baumeister’s art was now inspired by the ruins of Germany. In Paris at this time the revival of mural painting was being debated, which goes some way to explaining the nostalgia for Baumeister’s »Wall Pictures«. Baumeister’s searching examination of archa­ic art was labelled by one art critic with the cliché »romantisme allemand«.75 During this stay in Paris Baumeister jotted down in his notebook the names of younger artists of the École de Paris who had aroused his interest, such as Jean Bazaine, Maurice Estève, Hans Hartung, Gérard Schneider and Pierre Soulages.76 Soulages and Hartung later showed work at an exhibition or­ganized by ZEN 49, an association of abstract artists founded in Munich in 1949 in which Baumeister played a major role.

Then, on the occasion of Baumeister’s 65th birthday, the Ga­lerie Jeanne Bucher devoted a solo show to him, entitled »Willi Bau meister – œuvres recentes«, featuring works of recent years, including the »Montaru« and »Monturi« series.77

Early in 1955, only a few months before Baumeister died, the Galerie Cercle Volney, owned by the Paris art dealer René Drouin, mounted the comprehensive exhibition »Peintures et Sculptures non figuratives en Allemagne d’Aujourd’hui«. Works by the younger generation, including Karl Otto Götz, K. R. H. Sonderborg, Rupprecht Geiger and Norbert Kricke, were shown alongside established art­ists such as Baumeister.78 This exhibition, at which Baumeister was represented by five works, once again earned him acclaim and crit­ical appreciation from the French press.79 Drouin was so enthusias­tic about Baumeister’s work that he visited him in Stuttgart as soon as the exhibition closed. »ARU 5« (Fig. p. 38), painted only short­ly before the exhibition, was particularly admired.80 A silkscreen print of the painting »ARU 7«81 was reproduced on the exhibition poster and the cover of the catalogue accompanying the show. A documentary film made by Ottomar Domnick, a Stuttgart art col­lector, and titled »Willi Baumeister: Bilderwelten voller Rätsel und Geheimnisse« was shown at the Cinéma Lux in rue de Rennes on the evenings before and after the vernissage. The film was dubbed in French specially for the exhibition.82

In parallel with that exhibition Paris also put on a show of Chi­nese art, with pieces from the Han period that Baumeister found fascinating. This exhibition is believed to have inspired the neolo­gism »Han­i«,83 coined by Baumeister, which he used as the title of his last series of works. The central motif in the works belong­ing to this series is a shape of minimalist design and the utmost elegance that is reminiscent of Chinese calligraphy.

On 31 August 1955 Willi Baumeister died while painting at his easel. At that time seven pictures taken from all periods of his

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work84 were on show at the first documenta in Kassel. Paintings by his friend Fernand Léger, who had died two weeks before Baumeister, were also exhibited at that documenta. Laurel wreaths were placed in front of the works of both artists.85

1 Felicitas Karg­Baumeister and Jochen Canobbi, »Biographie«, in Willi Baumeister, exh. cat. (Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Berlin, 1989), pp. 9 –73, esp. p. 10.

2 Ibid., p. 12.3 Ibid., p. 12 f.4 Peter Beye and Felicitas Baumeister, Willi Baumeister: Werkkatalog der Gemälde, vol. 1

(Ostfildern­Ruit, 2002), p. 142.5 Peter Beye and Felicitas Baumeister, Willi Baumeister: Werkkatalog der Gemälde, vol. 2

(Ostfildern­Ruit, 2002), BB 34.6 Karg­Baumeister and Canobbi 1989 (see note 1), p. 15.7 Radio interview with Willi Baumeister conducted by Christoph Cwiklitzer, 1951,

recording in the Baumeister Archives at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart.8 Heinz Spielmann (ed.), »Willi Baumeister: Zimmer­ und Wandgeister: Anmerkungen

zum Inhalt meiner Bilder – Ein Fragment aus dem Nachlass des Künstlers und damit zusammenhängende Briefe« in Jahrbuch der Hamburger Kunstsammlungen, 12 (1967), pp. 121– 68, esp. p. 132.

9 Paul Ferdinand Schmidt, »Willy Baumeister«, Das Kunstblatt, 5/9 (1921), pp. 276 –79. Quoted in Karg­Baumeister and Canobbi 1989 (see note 1), p. 22.

10 Quoted in Christine Hopfengart, »Baumeister und die Öffentlichkeit«, in Willi Baumeister, exh. cat. (Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Berlin 1989), pp. 111– 25, esp. p. 112.

11 Felicitas Baumeister, »Zu den Skizzenbüchern von Willi Baumeister: Erinnerungen von Felicitas Baumeister«, in Gerd Presler and Felicitas Baumeister, Willi Baumeister: Werkverzeichnis der Skizzenbücher: Schriften des Archiv Baumeister im Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, vol. 2 (Berlin and Munich, 2010), pp. 11– 37, esp. p. 16.

12 Waldemar George, »La Peinture en Allemagne: Willy Baumeister«, L’Esprit Nouveau, 15 (1922), pp. 1790– 94.

13 The artists referred to are those who exhibited at L’Effort Moderne, Léonce Rosenberg’s Paris gallery. Willi Baumeister, »Vorwort«, in Willi Baumeister, exh. cat. (Galerie Alfred Flechtheim, Berlin and Düsseldorf; Berlin, 1929), p. 3.

14 Martin Schieder, Im Blick des Anderen: Die deutsch-französischen Kunstbeziehungen 1945 –1959 (Berlin, 2005), p. 120 f.

15 Amédée Ozenfant and Le Corbusier, »Vers le cristal« L’Esprit Nouveau, 25 (1924), illus. p. 139.

16 Sylvie Ramond, »›Aucune trace de l’ésprit germanique‹: Baumeister entre la France et l’Allemagne«, in exh. cat. Colmar and Saint Étienne 1999 (see note 24), pp. 163 – 82, esp. p. 171.

17 Karg­Baumeister and Canobbi 1989 (see note 1), p. 26. 18 Willi Baumeister, »Notwendigkeit des Modernseins: Ein Gespräch über Kunst vom Jahre

1924«, Deutsche Rundschau, (March 1934), pp. 167–70. Quoted in Gottfried Boehm, »Corps­tableau et machine­tableau: Les trauveaux de Baumeister dans les année 20 et son amitié avec Léger«, in exh. cat., Colmar and Saint Étienne 1999 (see note 24), pp. 67–78, esp. pp. 76 –78.

19 Liliane Meffre, »Willi Baumeister et l’Allemagne de son temps«, in exh. cat. Colmar and Saint Étienne 1999 (see note 24), pp. 11–18, esp. p. 14.

20 Gottfried Boehm, Willi Baumeister (Stuttgart, 1995), p. 15.21 Quoted in Ramond 1999 (see note 16), p. 163.22 Baumeister 2010 (see note 11), p. 16 f.23 Hopfengart 1989 (see note 10), p. 114.24 Willi Baumeister et la France, exh. cat. (Musée d’Unterlinden, Colmar, and Musée d’Art

Moderne, Saint Étienne 1999 – 2000; Paris, 1999), p. 261.25 Isabelle Ewig, »Paul Klee de la ›Maison de la Construction‹ au ›Musée du Rêve‹«,

in Isabelle Ewig, Thomas W. Gaehtgens and Matthias Noell (eds.), Das Bauhaus und Frankreich 1919 –1940 / Le Bauhaus et la France (Berlin, 2002), pp. 191– 218, esp. p. 199 f.

26 Baumeister 2010 (see note 11), p. 17.27 Schieder 2005 (see note 14), p. 120.28 Ramond 1999 (see note 16), p. 179.29 Willi Baumeister, note, 6 January 1927, Baumeister Archives at the Kunstmuseum

Stuttgart.30 Quoted in Wolfgang Kermer, »Willi Baumeister und die Werkbund­Ausstellung

›Die Wohnung‹ Stuttgart 1927«, in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Staatlichen Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart (Stuttgart, 2003), p. 124.

31 Ibid., p. 129.32 Will Grohmann, Willi Baumeister: Leben und Werk (Cologne, 1963), p. 54.33 Ramond 1999 (see note 16), p. 179. Will Grohmann, »La peinture moderne en Allemagne«,

L’Intransigeant, 18 March 1930.34 Jérôme Mauche, »›Aucun jeu de muscles terrestres‹: Arp et Baumeister«, in exh. cat.

Colmar and Saint Étienne 1999 (see note 24), pp. 121– 32, esp. p. 122.35 Willi Baumeister, diary entry, 6 January 1927, Baumeister Archives at the Kunstmuseum

Stuttgart.36 Beye and Baumeister 2002 (see note 4), p. 144.37 Helmut Friedel (ed.), Kandinsky: Absolut – Abstrakt, exh. cat. (Lenbachhaus, Munich,

Centre Pompidou, Paris, and Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2008 –10; Munich, Berlin, London and New York, 2008), p. 40.

38 Willi Baumeister, »Enquête sur l’art abstrait: Réponse de Willi Baumeister«, Cahiers d’Art, 6/4 (1931), p. 215 f.

39 Will Grohmann, Willi Baumeister: Les Peintres Nouveaux (Paris, 1931).40 Gérard Durozoi, »Painting and Sculpture«, in Vincent Bouvent and Gérard Durozoi,

Paris: Between the Wars 1919 –1939: Art, Life & Culture (New York, 2010), pp. 193 – 285, esp. p. 227.

41 Willi Baumeister: Chronique de la vie artistique, Sélection, vol. XI (Antwerp, 1931) (with essays by Will Grohmann, Pierre Flouquet, Waldemar George, Hans Arp, Karl Konrad Düssel, Josef Gantner, Christian Zervos, Michel Seuphor, Fernand Léger, Le Corbusier, Ernst Schön and Willi Baumeister).

42 Letter from Le Corbusier to Willi Baumeister, 16 February 1931, Baumeister Archives at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart.

43 Kermer 2003 (see note 30), p. 114 f., illus. pp. 217– 20, p. 223 f.44 Letter from Wassily Kandinsky to Willi Baumeister, 19 April 1931, in Karg­Baumeister and

Canobbi 1989 (see note 1), p. 37.45 Schieder 2005 (see note 14), p. 120.46 Willi Baumeister, diary entry, 7 July 1937, Baumeister Archives at the Kunstmuseum

Stuttgart.47 Exh. cat. Colmar and Saint Étienne 1999 (see note 24), p. 265.

298

48 Willi Baumeister, diary entry, 15 October 1937, Baumeister Archives at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart.

49 Willi Baumeister, typescript, c. 1946, Baumeister Archives at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart.50 Bouvent Vincent, »The Decorative Arts«, in Vincent Bouvent and Gérard Durozoi Paris:

Between the Wars 1919 –1939: Art, Life & Culture (New York, 2010), p. 135.51 Willi Baumeister, typescript, c. 1946, Baumeister Archives at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart.52 Götz Adriani (ed.), Baumeister: Dokumente, Texte, Gemälde, exh. cat. (Kunsthalle

Tübingen; Cologne, 1971), p. 134.53 Exh. cat. Colmar and Saint Étienne 1999 (see note 24), p. 267.54 Grohmann 1963 (see note 32), p. 72.55 Willi Baumeister, diary entry, 23 January 1939, Baumeister Archives at the Kunstmuseum

Stuttgart.56 Durozoi 2010 (see note 40), p. 285.57 Exh. cat. Colmar and Saint Étienne 1999 (see note 24), p. 267.58 Baumeister 2010 (see note 11), p. 22.59 Willi Baumeister, diary entry, 5 February 1943, Baumeister Archives at the Kunstmuseum

Stuttgart.60 Ibid., diary entry, 29 November 1943.61 Ibid., diary entry, 19 January 1944.62 Schieder 2005 (see note 14), p. 121.63 Ibid. p. 122.64 Willi Baumeister, diary entry, 28 March 1948, Baumeister Archives at the Kunstmuseum

Stuttgart.65 Schieder 2005 (see note 14), p. 98.66 Ibid., p. 98.67 Hopfengart 1989 (see note 10), p. 122.68 Schieder 2005 (see note 14), p. 72.69 Ibid., p. 19.70 Letter from Willi Baumeister to Will Grohmann, in Schieder 2005 (see note 14),

p. 20. – Maurice Jardot was cultural affairs attaché in the military government of the French occupation zone.

71 Ibid., p. 119.72 Ibid., pp. 124 – 25.73 Fernand Léger, »Willi Baumeister, L’Âge Nouveau, 44 (1949), p. 71. Quoted in

Karg­Baumeister and Canobbi 1989 (see note 1), p. 65. 74 Michel Seuphor, »Hommage«, in Willi Baumeister 1931 (see note 41), p. 22 f. 75 Schieder 2005 (see note 14), pp. 128 – 30.76 Baumeister 2010 (see note 11), p. 26.77 Willi Baumeister, diary entry, 27 March 1954, Baumeister Archives at the Kunstmuseum

Stuttgart.78 Schieder 2005 (see note 14), pp. 209 –11 and 222.79 Ibid., p. 130.80 Ibid., p. 218.81 Heinz Spielmann and Felicitas Baumeister, Willi Baumeister: Werkkatalog der Druckgraphik

(Ostfildern­Ruit, 2005), SB 243.82 Schieder 2005 (see note 14), p. 218.83 Baumeister 2010 (see note 11), p. 32.84 Dieter Honisch, »Der Beitrag Baumeisters zur Neubestimmung der Kunst in

Deutschland«, in Willi Baumeister, exh. cat. (Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Berlin, 1989), p. 83.85 Kindly imparted to the author by Felicitas Baumeister.

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