Herbert Bayer

American, born Austrian, 1900 - 1985

BiographyBorn in Haag, Austria, Herbert Bayer had a 60-year career that included abstract and surrealist painting, sculpture, environmental art, industrial design, architecture, graphic design, lithography, photography and tapestry. He also did murals including for the Bauhaus Building in Weimar, the Graduate Center at Harvard University and the Health Center in Aspen, Colorado. In 1968, he designed the articulated wall construction for the Olympics in Mexico City.

In addition to pursuing his own creative artistic talents, Herbert Bayer held administrative positions related to his design abilities. In Germany, he was a Director of the Bauhaus, Art Director of Vogue magazine, and Director of Dorland Studio in Berlin from 1928 to 1938. In America, Herbert Bayer was chairman of the design department for the Container Corporation, was Design Consultant for the Aspen Institute and Atlantic Richfield Company as well as for the town of Aspen, Colorado.

Herbert Bayer began his professional career in Germany as an architect. He studied architecture at Real Gym in Linz, Austria, and then was an apprentice in Linz and in Darmstadt. He expanded his pursuits into painting and design and did wall paintings with Vassily Kandinsky in 1921 and was a teacher of advertising layout and topography at the Weimer Bauhaus.

In 1938, as World War II was beginning in Europe, he emigrated to the United States, first living in New York, and in 1946, settling for the remainder of his life in Aspen, Colorado where he became an influential cultural force.

Memberships included the American Abstract Artists, and exhibition venues were in Germany and in the United States including the Art Institute of Chicago, San Francisco Museum of Art, Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC and Marlborough Gallery in New York City.

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