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Oct

Exhibition: ‘Ernst A. Heiniger – Good Morning, World!’ at Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Zürich

Exhibition dates: 5th June – 10th October 2021

Curators: Teresa Gruber and Katharina Rippstein

Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993)
“Bjesprisorni”, Sleeping boy in Leningrad
1932
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

An end of week posting before the exhibition closes.

Ernst A. Heiniger seems to have been a man of much learning and creativity … a polymath.

He belonged to the avant-garde of the Swiss “New Photography” movement in the 1930s; he was a retoucher by trade who taught himself the art of photography. He created one of the first photobooks in Switzerland; he created innovative designs combining photography and graphic design, photo | graphic design, “an entirely novel concept at the time.” He made posters. He started shooting short black and white promotional and documentary films. He taught himself the wide format of Cinemascope and Technicolor film – “previously untested creative tools for Heiniger” – and was hired by Walt Disney to shoot his “edutainment” films all over the world. He was commissioned to produce a 360 degree film for Expo 64 in Lausanne and produced the oldest panorama shots in Switzerland (see video below), and then went on to develop his own 360 degree recording and projection technology in 1965, which was ready for use under the name “Swissorama” at the beginning of the 1980s (see images and film below).

What an artist, what creativity, intelligence and drive. Was there nothing this man couldn’t do!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

.
Many thankx to Fotostiftung Schweiz for allowing me to publish the photographs in the posting. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993)
Bahnhofplatz, Zurich
1933
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993)
Jumping over a crevasse, Bernese Oberland
1933
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993)
Grey and Brown, Puszta (Hungary)
1936
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993)
White wine star
1939
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993)
Rope team on the Bianco ridge, Grisons
1941
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993)
Fitting
1942
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993)
Water drop
1943
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

Ernst A. Heiniger (1909-1993) belonged to the avant-garde of the Swiss “New Photography” movement in the 1930s. A photo retoucher by trade, he taught himself the art of photography autodidactically. He quickly developed a keen sense for contemporary and modern aesthetics and soon became one of the first photographers to be admitted to the Swiss Werkbund (SWB). After this initial spark to his career, Heiniger constantly took on new challenges and continued to do pioneering work. In 1936 he created Puszta-Pferde (“Horses in Hungary”), one of the first modern photobooks in Switzerland. He worked with well-known graphic artists such as Heiri Steiner, Herbert Matter and Josef Müller-Brockmann and created innovative designs by combining photography and graphic design, an entirely novel concept at the time. In the 1950s, Heiniger travelled the world as a documentary filmmaker for Walt Disney – two of his short films were awarded an Oscar. He later created Switzerland’s first 360 degree film for Expo 64 in Lausanne.

Even though Ernst A. Heiniger’s visual worlds were admired by a broad public in his day, his name is still largely absent from the canon of Swiss photographic history. In 1986, he left Switzerland determined never to return and lived in Los Angeles until his death in 1993. Since then, the Fotostiftung Schweiz has sought to return his photographic estate to Switzerland – which it finally accomplished in 2014. The exploration and processing of his archive provide the basis for the first comprehensive retrospective of this creative visual designer. The exhibition Ernst A. Heiniger – Good Morning, World! shows object and nature photographs, photobooks, posters, films, making-of pictures and documentaries that situate his work within the history of photography. His 360 degree film Rund um Rad und Schiene (“Magic of the Rails”) – the SBB’s attraction at Expo 64 in Lausanne – has been recreated as an all-around projection. Ernst A. Heiniger’s diverse photographic and cinematic oeuvre was always at the cutting edge of technology and oscillates between cool perfection and sensual closeness to nature.

New Photography and the Swiss Werkbund

In 1929, at the age of twenty, Ernst A. Heiniger set up his own business as a positive retoucher. In the same year, the exhibition Film und Foto (FiFo) by the German Werkbund took place at the School of Applied Arts in Zurich. The title of the exhibition was to be emblematic of Heiniger’s further career, as the two camera-based media, film and photography, defined his entire artistic output. At the time, the international touring exhibition was considered a manifesto for a modern visual aesthetic. The terms “Neues Sehen” (New Vision) and “Neue Sachlichkeit” (New Objectivity) were used to describe those avant-garde tendencies that emphasised genuinely photographic means of design. The characteristics of the new aesthetic included sharpness of image, attention to detail, unusual perspectives such as high and low angle shots, (abstracting) close-ups or multiple exposures. The precise capture of structures and forms was also one of the typical qualities of this “New Photography”, as it became known in Switzerland. After only a short period as a self-employed retoucher, Ernst A. Heiniger decided to learn how to take photographs himself. He made his customers an offer: for the same price, they would receive a new, better photograph instead of a retouched one. Inspired by visits to exhibitions and publications such as Werner Gräff’s Es kommt der neue Fotograf! (“Here Comes the New Photographer”, 1929), he adapted the aesthetics of the international avant-garde and became one of the pioneers of New Photography in Switzerland. His achievements as a photographer did not go unnoticed by the Swiss Werkbund (SWB), which campaigned for the advancement of “New Photography in Switzerland” and organised an exhibition with this title in 1932. Heiniger was represented with several pictures at the exhibition and was one of the first photographers to be admitted to the SWB Zurich in 1933.

Ernst A. Heiniger book covers

Photobooks

In 1936, Ernst A. Heiniger ventured into a new medium – the photobook. For his first essayistic photobook Puszta-Pferde (“Horses in Hungary”), he travelled to Hungary to take pictures of the wild horses of the Pannonian Steppe over the course of several weeks. While designing the book, he experimented freely with his photographic material and composed lively and varied photo pages. In 1937, the book was published in high-quality rotogravure by the Zurich publishing house Fretz & Wasmuth. With a total (German) print run of 23,000 copies, it was a great success and showed for the first time that Ernst A. Heiniger was not merely an aloof representative of avant-garde photography, but also had a talent for inspiring a wider audience with his pictures.

Heiniger was able to build on this success with his next two books Tessin (“Ticino”, 1941) and Viertausender (“Four-Thousanders”, 1942). Both were produced during the Second World War against the backdrop of closed borders and a revival of sentimental homeland imagery. In the context of “spiritual national defence”, the “Heimatbuch”, a genre of books painting an idealised image of Alpine nature and culture, was encouraged by the authorities as a means to inspire the moral uplift of a beleaguered nation. For Heiniger, however, high alpine landscape photography was also a fresh opportunity to translate a subject he was passionate about into book form. The overly romantic transfiguration of the local landscape was kept in check by the fact that he remained true to his detached, objective style. With a firm belief in the documentary power of photography, he wanted to convey the experience that was revealed to the alpinist upon reaching a mountain peak. The many enthusiastic book reviews give an indication of the entertaining, escapist potential of his books in an age when a destructive war was raging outside Switzerland’s borders.

Heiri Steiner (Swiss, 1906-1983) (designer)
Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993) (photographer)
Grindewald poster
1935

Heiri Steiner (Swiss, 1906-1983) (designer)
Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993) (photographer)
Bally Shoes poster
1936

Installation view of the exhibition Ernst A. Heiniger – Good Morning, World!’ at Fotostiftung Schweiz, Winterthur, Zürich showing at right, Telefon poster (1942)

Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993)
Telefon poster
1942
Poster
128 x 90.5cm (50.4 x 35.6 in.)

Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993)
World Exhibition of Photography Lucerne poster
1952

Photo|graphic design

The medium of photography experienced a boom in the 1930s in the form of printed images. The quality standards of the printing trade were high in Switzerland, and photography was increasingly used for magazine illustrations, poster designs and commercial art. Important innovators in typography and graphic design such as Max Bill, Anton Stankowski or Jan Tschichold resided in Zurich; Ernst A. Heiniger worked in a creative and innovative environment. Under the terms “Fotografik” or “Typofoto”, photography entered into a new kind of combination with graphic and typographic elements. The progressive, neo-objective aesthetics of New Photography was ideally suited to applications in the field of advertising. Heiniger supplied images for well-known graphic artists such as Herbert Matter, Richard Paul Lohse and Josef Müller-Brockmann and also practised graphic design himself. From 1934 to 1939, he managed a studio for photography and graphic art on St. Annagasse in Zurich together with Heiri Steiner. As a duo with Steiner, and later as a solo artist, he designed visionary posters that still have a timeless and modern effect today.

Ernst A. Heiniger Das Buch vom Telephon book cover

“Pro Telephon” and first films

After parting company with Heiri Steiner, Ernst A. Heiniger was fortunate to have the opportunity to work for a loyal client that was open to modern advertising. The Swiss telecommunications company PTT had launched a campaign in 1927 to popularise the telephone in Switzerland. Heiniger worked for them as a photographer and graphic designer throughout the war and beyond. From 1942, he also started making his first short promotional films for “Pro Telephon”, and in 1946 he was behind the camera for the 20-minute documentary Sül Bernina (CH, 1948). The film uses impressive scenes and modernist imagery to show how the heavy telephone cable was joined together from the north and south at the Bernina Pass to replace the telephone poles that were susceptible to interference.

Ernst A. Heiniger World Exhibition of Photography 1952 Lucern, Switzerland catalogue

The World Exhibition of Photography in Lucerne

The year 1952 marked a turning point in Heiniger’s life and career. The World Exhibition of Photography was held in Lucerne – a universally oriented exhibition that aimed to show the medium’s areas of application as comprehensively as possible. Heiniger was involved in the major event in various capacities: as a graphic designer, he won the competition for the poster design, and as an expert in the field of object photography, he was entrusted with the curatorial task of organising the “Sachwiedergabe” (“object reproduction”) section. His own pictures were omnipresent at the exhibition. A prominent visitor recognised Heiniger’s talent, and in the summer of 1952 he and Walt Disney met for the first time at the Hotel Palace in Lucerne. Disney cut right to the chase and offered Heiniger a job as a cameraman for his planned documentary film about Switzerland. While working with the American media company, Ernst A. Heiniger met his future wife Jean Feaster. After their marriage in 1953, the two became an inseparable team, not only in private but also professionally.

Ernst A. Heiniger Masterpieces of Photography 1952

Masterpieces

In addition to the platform offered to Ernst A. Heiniger at the Lucerne exhibition, he produced an illustrated book in the same year to draw attention to his photographic work. He edited a portfolio of sorts comprising 52 of his best independent and applied works that he had produced since the 1930s. The publication appeared in two languages; he called the German edition Das Jahr des Fotografen (“The Year of the Photographer”). On each double-page spread he arranged two pictures that are characterised by contrasts in form or content, but have something in common in their juxtaposition, which the lyricist Albert Ehrismann pondered in the captions. The English edition contains picture commentary by the British writer R.A. Langford and bears the self-confident title Masterpieces of Photography. The estate includes almost all the original prints of these Masterpieces, which were used as print templates at the time. The objects laminated on photo mounting board form the core of the exhibition and provide an insight into Heiniger’s appraisal of his own work as the focus of his activity began to shift from the static to the moving image.

Films for Walt Disney

In the early 1950s, Walt Disney launched the documentary film series People & Places for the supporting programme of his animated films – an anthology of half-hour short films designed to introduce foreign countries and peoples to American audiences. One of these countries was Switzerland. While searching for a suitable cameraman, Disney became aware of Ernst A. Heiniger. Switzerland (CH, 1955) was to be the third film in the series and also the first to be shot in Cinemascope. The pronounced wide format of Cinemascope and Technicolor film were new, previously untested creative tools for Heiniger. But he never shied away from a challenge and quickly learned to work with the format and colour, and so he was immediately rehired for further films by Walt Disney Productions. From 1955 to 1957, Jean and Ernst A. Heiniger travelled extensively in Asia. They shot two new People & Places films in Japan: Ama Girls (USA, 1958) follows the lives of a fishing family from Inatori with a special focus on the unusual profession of the 18-year-old daughter, who earns her living as a seaweed diver. For the second film Japan (USA, 1960), the Heinigers documented Japanese festivals, traditional crafts and a Shinto wedding. Disney’s so-called “edutainment” films were designed to inform and entertain a broad cinema audience. Although Walt Disney gave the camera teams travelling all over the world for him a great deal of creative freedom, the films were eventually edited according to commercial criteria under the supervision of his producer Ben Sharpsteen. In 1958, the Heinigers spent another whole year in the Colorado River area for the film project Grand Canyon (USA, 1958), a film adaptation of the extremely popular suite of the same name by the composer Ferde Grofé. The short film was shown in 1959 as a supporting film for Sleeping Beauty. In the same year, the two films Ama Girls and Grand Canyon both won an Academy Award (“Oscar”) – one for Best Documentary (Short Subject), the other for Best Live Action Short Film.

The Ernst A. Heiniger Archive contains numerous slides that document the filming of Disney productions or can also be described as stills. The films Ama Girls, Japan, Grand Canyon and the German version of Switzerland were made available for viewing thanks to digital copies from film archives and are also part of the exhibition.

360 degree cinema

After film was plunged into crisis by the spread of television, the industry steadily introduced new film formats to enhance the viewing experience at the cinema. Following the various widescreen formats, Disney’s patented “Circarama” technology set new standards in the 1950s. The system, consisting of a camera and projection display, enabled the capture and reproduction of a full 360 degree angle. In the early 1960s, Ernst A. Heiniger was commissioned by the SBB to produce a 360 degree film for Expo 64 in Lausanne. He was not only responsible for the production, cinematography and direction of the project, but also developed the script for Rund um Rad und Schiene (“Magic of the Rails”, CH, 1964) in cooperation with the client. The 20-minute film was shown every half hour at the Expo in a round auditorium with a diameter of 26.5 metres and a capacity of 1500 people. Around 4 million people had seen the film by the end of the Expo. The Fotostiftung Schweiz is showing this first Swiss 360-degree film, which was restored and digitised in 2014 as part of a Memoriav project, on a smaller scale as a walk-in circular projection.

Despite the success of Magic of the Rails, Heiniger was only partially satisfied with the result; he was bothered by the technical shortcomings of the Circarama system, which did not allow seamless projection. He therefore began developing his own 360 degree recording and projection technology in 1965, which was ready for use under the name “Swissorama” at the beginning of the 1980s. From 1982 to 1984, he used his system to produce the film Impressions of Switzerland (CH, 1984), a total image of Switzerland, which was shown continuously from 1984 to 2002 at the Museum of Transport in Lucerne in a custom-built auditorium.

The exhibition was curated by Teresa Gruber and Katharina Rippstein. The publication Ernst A. Heiniger – Good Morning, World! accompanying the exhibition is available from Scheidegger & Spiess. The Ernst A. Heiniger Archive, which is maintained by the Fotostiftung Schweiz, has been comprehensively indexed and digitised and is accessible to the public via an online database: fss.e-pics.ethz.ch.

Press release from the Fotostiftung Schweiz website

Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993)
Poster “so telephonieren”
1950
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993)
Self-portrait
around 1950
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993)
Ernst A. Heiniger and his wife Jean were inseparable: here they traveled to Japan for a Cinemascope film
around 1956
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993)
Seaweed diver, film scene from ‘Ama Girls’ (USA, 1958)
around 1956
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

A day’s trip west of Tokyo, Ernst A. Heiniger found a place that he imagined: the archaic-looking fishing village of Inatori. He selected a few villagers, arranged them into a family and let them play their “authentic” everyday life. Yukiko – an 18-year-old hairdresser in real life – is one of those divers with special skills in the film. They stay under water for minutes to harvest the coveted seaweed.

The 30-minute film “Ama Girls” won an Oscar in 1959 and spurred Heiniger’s further career. Numerous photographs were taken on the set between filming, such as this shot of the alleged diver who had just emerged from the sea. As a kind of mermaid, she embodies a phantasm: beautiful, mysterious, exotic and aloof.

Fotostiftung Schweiz. “Die Bildkritik – Perlen der Fotostiftung Schweiz,” on the NZZ website 8/9/2021 [Online] Cited 13/09/2021. Translated from the German.

Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993)
Women at a festival, Japan
around 1956
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993)
Jean and Ernst A. Heiniger during the shooting of the Cinemasope film “Grand Canyon” (USA, 1958)
1958
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993)
Ernst A. Heiniger with his wife Jean while shooting a Cinemascope film
Nd
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

Karl Wolf
Shooting of the Circarama film “Rund um Rad und Schiene”
1963
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

Echorama in 360°: Eine Schweizer Zeitreise in die 60er-Jahre und zurück
Echorama in 360 °: A Swiss journey through time to the 1960s and back

The oldest panorama shots in Switzerland come from the film “All about wheel and rail” by Ernst A. Heiniger. The recordings amazed the visitors of Expo 64. Discover scenes from the crowd puller here: take a look around Bern’s old town, a dining car with neatly dressed people or a construction site from the 1960s. Recordings from the present also show how cityscapes, technologies and worldviews have changed. With headphones you can dive deeper into the pictures, which are underlaid with news articles from the respective time.

Karl Wolf
The 9-camera system on Heiniger’s Chevrolet: the filmmaker worked hard for the Expo film
around 1963
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

The 9-camera system outdoors

Vicky Schoch
Ernst A. Heiniger showed Walt Disney the site of Expo 64. The two were close friends
1964
SRF Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen

Anonymous
The Circarama Circular Theatre of the SBB at Expo 64 in Lausanne
1964
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

The 360 pioneer

Heiniger, who had a passion for technology, was very much involved in the development of Disney’s “Circarama” system. Creating a circular movie theatre that screened 360° films became one of his dreams. He was able to realise this dream when the Swiss Federal Railways commissioned him to shoot a movie in this format for the Expo 64 in Lausanne. The film All About Wheels and Rails was a huge success. It is allegedly one of Switzerland’s most watched films with almost four million viewers.

Heiniger continued to develop the 360° technology until the end of the 1980s when he launched “Swissorama”, a new-and-improved cylindrical 360° film system. Europeans were sceptical of the system, and when Heiniger moved to Los Angeles with his wife in 1986, he sold it to a US company which marketed it under the new name “Imagine 360”.

His last wide-screen film, Destination Berlin, was due to be screened in a dome cinema near West Berlin’s tourist district, the Ku’damm, but historic events shuttered his project. With German reunification, half of the city, namely East Berlin, was missing from the movie. Audiences stayed away and the film never reached the expected success.

Heiniger’s death

The money he made with the sale of “Swissorama” enabled him to buy a house in the Hollywood Hills, where he lived for the remainder of his life. His death in 1993 went unnoticed in Switzerland where he is still relatively unknown, even though several exhibitions and events have been dedicated to him.

In 1997 the newly established Swiss Photo Foundation organised an exhibition of his work at the Zurich Art Museum, and one of his wide-screen films was shown at the Transportation Museum in Lucerne until 2002. When the Swissorama closed that year, this kind of film disappeared, dashing his dream of creating a worldwide network of 360° cinemas.

Anonymous. “On the trail of photographer and Oscar winner Ernst A. Heiniger,” on the Swissinfo website August 2, 2021 [Online] Cited 13/09/2021.

Books

Puszta horses (Zurich 1936)
The Photo Book of the National Exhibition (Zurich 1939)
Ticino (Zurich 1941)
Four-thousanders. A picture book of the beauty of our Alps (Zurich 1942)
The Year of the Photographer (Zurich 1952)
Grand Canyon, nature and wildlife in 157 colour photos. Kümmerly & Frey Geographischer Verlag, Bern 1971
The Great Book of Jewels (Lausanne 1974)

Filmography

1942: The telephone cable
1943: The telephone set
1944: From wire to cable
1945: The telephone exchange
1948: On the Bernina
1954: Switzerland
1957: Japan
1956-1957: Ama Girls (TV series in 13 parts)
1958: Grand Canyon
1965-1967: Switzerland
1964: All about wheels and rails
1984: Impressions of Switzerland
1988: Shikoku Alive
1989: Destination Berlin

Ernst A. Heiniger (Swiss, 1909-1993)
Self-portrait
1960s
© Fotostiftung Schweiz

Ernst A. Heiniger – Good Morning, World! book cover

Ernst A. Heiniger – Good Morning, World! book pages

Fotostiftung Schweiz
Grüzenstrasse 45
CH-8400 Winterthur (Zürich)
Phone: +41 52 234 10 30

Opening hours:
Tuesday – Sunday 11am – 6pm
Wednesday 11am – 8pm
Closed on Mondays

Fotostiftung Schweiz website

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Dec

Objet d’art: French and German enamelled boxes at the Louvre, Paris

By Dr Marcus Bunyan Leave a Comment

Categories: beauty, designer, gallery website and Paris
Tags: A. Filassier, Amorous scenes, Architectural views, Basket of fruit and flowers, Cage-mounted snuffbox with lacquer panels, Chased and enamelled gold snuffboxes, Children after Boucher, D.F. Pointreau, D.F. Pointreau Military themes, Figures on greenery, French and German enamelled boxes at the Louvre, French enamelled box, French enamelled boxes, Gallant conversation, German enamelled boxes, German hardstone box, German hardstone boxes, gifts of the king and royal portraits, goldsmith, J.C. Neuber, J.C. Neuber Snuffbox, J.C. Neuber Tablet case, J.F. Breton, J.F. Breton Gallant conversation, J.M. Lequin, J.M. Lequin and C. Perron, J.M. Lequin and C. Perron Nymphs and tritons, J.M. Lequin Birds, J.M. Lequin Minerva Mercury Pegasus, J.M. Nattier, J.M. Nattier Marie Leczinska, J.M. Tiron, J.M. Tiron Cage-mounted snuffbox with lacquer panels, J.M. Tiron Rest after Greuze, Jean Ducrollay, Jean Ducrollay Children after Boucher, Jean Ducrollay Flowers and fruit, Jean Ducrollay Snuffbox, Jean Ducrollay The Chariot of Venus, Jean George, Jean George Rustic scenes, Jean Moynat, Jean Moynat Amorous scenes, Louis XV, Louvre Paris, Marie Leczinska, Military themes, Minerva Mercury Pegasus, Musical subjects, N. Bouillerut, N. Bouillerut Snuffbox, Noel Harivilliers, Noel Harivilliers Figures on greenery, Nymphs and tritons, Objet d'art, P.F. Delafons, P.F. Delafons Architectural views, P.F. Drais, P.F. Drais Louis XV, Paul Robert, Paul Robert Still lifes, Rest after Greuze, Rustic scenes, Snuffbox, Snuffbox with oriental temple, still lifes, Sweet boxes and snuffboxes, Tablet case, The Chariot of Venus, The Spoilt Child after Greuze

December 2020

J.M. Tiron (goldsmith)
Cage-mounted snuffbox with lacquer panels
Paris, 1761-1762
Gold, lacquer

I love boxes. Enamelled boxes, gold boxes, silver boxes, wooden boxes, Persian boxes, Chinese boxes, Japanese boxes… any type of small box. They are just so beautiful, sensual in the hand.

My friend Terrence likes boxes.

This posting is for Terrence.

Marcus

PS. These boxes were made during the reign of Louis XV of France. Historians generally criticise his reign, citing how reports of his corruption embarrassed the monarchy and wars drained the treasury and contributed to the French Revolution of 1789. No wonder there was a revolution: just as with Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his patronage of the jeweller Fabergé, it is always a question of the haves and the have nots.

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All iPhone images © Dr Marcus Bunyan. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

A. Filassier
Snuffbox with oriental temple
Paris, 1742-1743
Gold, diamonds, rubies, pearls

Jean Ducrollay (goldsmith)
Snuffbox
Paris, 1750-1752
Gold, agate

N. Bouillerut (goldsmith)
Snuffbox
Paris, 1731-1732
Gold, agate

P.F. Delafons
Architectural views
1747-1750
Chiseled and enamelled gold

J.F. Breton
Gallant conversation
Paris, 1753-1754
Two-coloured gold, diamonds

D.F. Pointreau
Military themes
Paris, 1759-1760
Four-coloured gold (white, yellow, green, rose), diamonds, emeralds

J.M. Lequin and C. Perron
Nymphs and tritons
Paris, 1750-1752

J.M. Lequin
Birds
Paris, 1749-50

Jean Ducrollay
Children, after Boucher
Paris, 1754-1755

Jean Moynat
Amorous scenes
1753-1754

J.M. Lequin
Minerva, Mercury, Pegasus
1750-1752
Gold, guilloche enamels, painted enamels

Sweet boxes and snuffboxes, gifts of the king and royal portraits, 1668-1781

P.F. Drais (goldsmith)
Louis XV
1768-1769

J.M. Nattier (attributed)
Marie Leczinska
Paris, 1775-1781
Atelier des Martin, vernisseurs
Gold

French enamelled box

Chased and enamelled gold snuffboxes with compartments

French enamelled box with flowers

Jean Ducrollay
The Chariot of Venus
Paris, 1755-1756

Jean Moynat
Basket of fruit and flowers
Paris, 1754-1755

Jean Moynat
Musical subjects
Paris, 1758-1759

Noel Harivilliers
Figures on greenery
Paris, 1752-1753

Jean George
Rustic scenes
Paris, 1755-1756

Paul Robert
Still lifes
Paris, 1763-1764

French enamelled box

Jean Ducrollay
Flowers and fruit
Paris, 1756-1757

Enamelled gold snuffboxes with genre scenes

Installation view of French enamelled boxes, Louvre, Paris

French enamelled box

Installation view of French enamelled boxes, Louvre, Paris

French enamelled box

Installation view of French enamelled boxes, Louvre, Paris

French enamelled box

The Spoilt Child, after Greuze
Paris 1768-1769

French enamelled box

J.M. Tiron
Rest, after Greuze
Paris, 1766-1767

French enamelled box

German hardstone boxes

Installation view of German hardstone boxes, Louvre, Paris

J.C. Neuber (goldsmith)
Tablet case
Dresden, c. 1775-1780
Gold, diamonds, hard stones

J.C. Neuber (goldsmith)
Snuffbox
Dresden, c. 1770-1780
Gold, agate, tourmaline

J.C. Neuber (goldsmith)
Snuffbox
Dresden, c. 1760-1770
Gold, hard stones

German hardstone box

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Nov

European art research tour exhibition: ‘László Moholy-Nagy and New Typography: A Reconstruction of a Berlin Exhibition from 1929’ at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

By Dr Marcus Bunyan Leave a Comment

Exhibition dates: 29th August 2019 – 15th September 2019 posted November 2020

Kunstbibliothek

Installation view of the exhibition László Moholy-Nagy and New Typography: A Reconstruction of a Berlin Exhibition from 1929 at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

A small, tight, focused exhibition which was stimulating for anyone interested in graphic design, photography, and typography – Neue Typografie.

Highlights included Covers for the Bauhaus books, 1925-1930, travel posters by A. M. Cassandre, plates from Moholy-Nagy’s 1929 Wohin geht die typographische Entwicklung? (Where is typography headed?) and a poster for the 1929 exhibition film und foto.

The inventiveness and creativity with colour, collage and the use of negative and positive space was peerless, elemental.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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All iPhone photographs © Marcus Bunyan. Many thankx for all other photographs to the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Wohin geht die typographische Entwicklung?
Where is typography headed?

Installation views of the exhibition László Moholy-Nagy and New Typography: A Reconstruction of a Berlin Exhibition from 1929 at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

die besten stuhl modelle der heutigen produktion
The best models of today’s production
ausstellung
exhibition
der Stuhl (installation view)
1929
Poster
kunstgewerbemuseum
Arts and Crafts Museum
Kunstbibliothek der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation views of the exhibition László Moholy-Nagy and New Typography: A Reconstruction of a Berlin Exhibition from 1929 at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Photo: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Installation view of the exhibition László Moholy-Nagy and New Typography: A Reconstruction of a Berlin Exhibition from 1929 at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin showing at left, Ausstellung Europäisches Kunstgewerbe (Exhibition of European applied arts) 1927; in the centre, Der Stuhl. Neue Typografie (New typography) 1929; and at right, Umschläge zu den Bauhausbüchern, 1925-1930 (Covers for the Bauhaus books, 1925-1930) 1925-1930
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Herbert Bayer (1900-1985)
Ausstellung Europäisches Kunstgewerbe (Exhibition of European applied arts) (installation view)
1927
Poster
Druckerei Ernst Hedrich Nachfolger, Leipzig Buchdruck
Ernst Hedrich printer, Leipzig Letterpress
Lithograph
Kunstbibliothek der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Herbert Bayer (1900-1985)
Ausstellung Europäisches Kunstgewerbe (Exhibition of European applied arts)
1927
Poster
Druckerei Ernst Hedrich Nachfolger, Leipzig Buchdruck
Ernst Hedrich printer, Leipzig Letterpress
Lithograph
35 1/4 x 23 3/4″ (89.5 x 60.3cm)
Kunstbibliothek der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin

László Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian, 1895-1946)
Der Stuhl. Neue Typografie (New typography) (installation view)
1929
Poster
Entwerfer Berek-Druck (Nachweiszeit: 1928-1940), Drucker
Designer Berek-Druck (record time: 1928-1940), printer
Printed in Berlin
Printing ink (black) & paper
Linocut
61.0 x 43.5cm
Kunstbibliothek der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

László Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian, 1895-1946)
Umschläge zu den Bauhausbüchern, 1925-1930 (Covers for the Bauhaus books, 1925-1930) (installation view)
1925-1930
Book covers
Druckerei Hesse & Becker, Leipzig
Hesse & Becker printing company, Leipzig
Druckerei Ohlenroth, Erfurt Klischees von Dr. von Löbbeke u. Co., Erfurt Buchdruck
Ohlenroth printing company, Erfurt Letterpress
Kunstbibliothek der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

László Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian, 1895-1946)
Bauhausbücher 8, L. Moholy-Nagy: Malerei, Fotografie, Film
1925
Albert Langen Verlag Herstellung, Entwerfer, Mitarbeit, Verleger
Albert Langen Verlag, Manufacture, designer, collaboration, publisher
Offset printing on paper and letterpress
Art Library / Collection of graphic design
Kunstbibliothek der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

A. M. Cassandre (1901-1968)
Etoile du Nord (North Star) (installation view)
1927
Poster
Druckerei Hachard et Cie., Paris
Hachard et Cie. Printing house, Paris
Lithograph
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

A. M. Cassandre (1901-1968)
Etoile du Nord (North Star)
1927
Poster
Druckerei Hachard et Cie., Paris
Hachard et Cie. Printing house, Paris
Lithograph

A. M. Cassandre (1901-1968)
Chemin de Fer du Nord. Vitesse-Luxe-Comfort (Northern Railway. Speed-Luxury-Comfort) (installation view)
1929
Poster
Druckerei L. Danel, Lille
L. Danel printing house, Lille
Lithograph
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

A. M. Cassandre

Cassandre, pseudonym of Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron (24 January 1901 – 17 June 1968) was a French painter, commercial poster artist, and typeface designer.

He was born Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron in Kharkiv, Ukraine, to French parents. As a young man, Cassandre moved to Paris, where he studied at the École des Beaux-Arts and at the Académie Julian. The popularity of posters as advertising afforded him an opportunity to work for a Parisian printing house. Inspired by cubism as well as surrealism, he earned a reputation with works such as Bûcheron (Woodcutter), a poster created for a cabinetmaker that won first prize at the 1925 Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes.

Cassandre became successful enough that with the help of partners he was able to set up his own advertising agency called Alliance Graphique, serving a wide variety of clients during the 1930s. He is perhaps best known for his posters advertising travel, for clients such as the Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits. He was a pioneer on airbrush arts.

His creations for the Dubonnet wine company were among the first posters designed in a manner that allowed them to be seen by occupants in moving vehicles. His posters are memorable for their innovative graphic solutions and their frequent denotations to such painters as Max Ernst and Pablo Picasso. In addition, he taught graphic design at the École des Arts Décoratifs and then at the École d’Art Graphique.

With typography an important part of poster design, the company created several new typeface styles. Cassandre developed Bifur in 1929, the sans serif Acier Noir in 1935, and in 1937 an all-purpose font called Peignot. In 1936, his works were exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City which led to commissions from Harper’s Bazaar to do cover designs.

Text from the Wikipedia website

A. M. Cassandre (1901-1968)
Chemin de Fer du Nord. Vitesse-Luxe-Comfort (Northern Railway. Speed-Luxury-Comfort)
1929
Poster
Druckerei L. Danel, Lille
L. Danel printing house, Lille
Lithograph

Max Burchartz (1887-1961)
Schubertfeier der Städtischen Bühnen Essen (Schubert celebration of the municipal theatres of Essen) (installation view)
1927
Poster
Druckerei F.W. Rohden Essen Buchdruck
F.W. Rohden Essen printing house
Letterpress

Max Burchartz (1887-1961)
Kölner Kammerorchester. Konzert aum Besten des Essener Blindenfürsorge-Vereins (Cologne Chamber Orchestra. Concert for the benefit of the Essen Blind Welfare Association) (installation view)
1927
Poster
Druckerei C.W. Haafeld, Essen Buchdruck
C.W. Haafeld, Essen printing house
Letterpress
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Max Burchartz (1887-1961)
Schubertfeier der Städtischen Bühnen Essen (Schubert celebration of the municipal theatres of Essen)
1927
Poster
Druckerei F.W. Rohden Essen Buchdruck
F.W. Rohden Essen printing house
Letterpress

Installation view of the exhibition László Moholy-Nagy and New Typography: A Reconstruction of a Berlin Exhibition from 1929 at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin showing American advertisement 1925 from The Saturday Evening Post
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Otto Baumberger (1889-1961)
Marque PKZ (installation view)
1923
Steindruckerei Wolfensberg, Zürich
Wolfensberg lithography, Zurich
Lithograph
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Otto Baumberger (1889-1961)
Marque PKZ
1923
Steindruckerei Wolfensberg, Zürich
Wolfensberg lithography, Zurich
Lithograph

Otto Baumberger (21 May 1889 Altstetten, Zurich – 26 December 1961 Weiningen), was a noted Swiss painter and poster artist. Baumberger produced some 200 posters of great quality and style. His realistic rendering of a herringbone tweed coat became a classic of Swiss poster, an example of a Sachplakat (object poster).

Installation view of the exhibition László Moholy-Nagy and New Typography: A Reconstruction of a Berlin Exhibition from 1929 at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

American advertisement
Mallory Straws (installation view)
1926
Chicago Sunday Tribune
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Das Illustrierte Blatt (The Illustrated Sheet) Nr. 35, Page 895
“Boxweltmeister Tunneys Memoiren” (Boxing World Champion Tunney’s Memoir)
1927
First German publication

László Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian, 1895-1946)
Wohin geht die typographische Entwicklung? Tafel 55 (installation view)
Where is typography headed? Chart 55
1929
Collage
© Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Herbert Bayer, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Herbert Bayer 1928

László Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian, 1895-1946)
Wohin geht die typographische Entwicklung?, Tafel 58 (installation view)
Where is typography headed? Chart 58
1929
Collage
© Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Herbert Bayer, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2019
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Jan Tschichold (1902-1974)
Die Hose (The pants) (installation view)
1927
F. Bruckmann printing house, Munich
Letterpress
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Jan Tschichold (1902-1974)
Die Hose (The pants)
1927
F. Bruckmann printing house, Munich
Letterpress

Jan Tschichold (1902-1974)
Die Frau ohne Namen (The woman without a name) (installation view)
1927
Lithographische Anstalt Gebr. Obpacher AG, Munich
Lithographic Institute Gebr. Obpacher AG, Munich
Letterpress
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Jan Tschichold

Jan Tschichold (born Johannes Tzschichhold, also known as Iwan Tschichold, or Ivan Tschichold; 2 April 1902 – 11 August 1974) was a calligrapher, typographer and book designer. He played a significant role in the development of graphic design in the 20th century – first, by developing and promoting principles of typographic modernism, and subsequently (and ironically) idealising conservative typographic structures. His direction of the visual identity of Penguin Books in the decade following World War II served as a model for the burgeoning design practice of planning corporate identity programs. He also designed the much-admired typeface Sabon. …

This artisan background and calligraphic training set him apart from almost all other noted typographers of the time, since they had inevitably trained in architecture or the fine arts. It also may help explain why he never worked with handmade papers and custom fonts as many typographers did, preferring instead to use stock fonts on a careful choice from commercial paper stocks.

Although, up to this moment, he had only worked with historical and traditional typography, he radically changed his approach after his first visit to the Bauhaus exhibition at Weimar. After being introduced to important artists such as László Moholy-Nagy, El Lissitzky, Kurt Schwitters and others who were carrying out radical experiments to break the rigid schemes of conventional typography. He became sympathetic to this attempt to find new ways of expression and to reach a much more experimental way of working, but at the same time, felt it was important to find a simple and practical approach.

He became one of the most important representatives of the “new typography” and in a famous special issue of ‘typographic communications’ in 1925 with the title of “Elemental Typography”, he put together the new approaches in the form of a thesis.

After the election of Hitler in Germany, all designers had to register with the Ministry of Culture, and all teaching posts were threatened for anyone who was sympathetic to communism. Soon after Tschichold had taken up a teaching post in Munich at the behest of Paul Renner, they both were denounced as “cultural Bolshevists”. Ten days after the Nazis surged to power in March 1933, Tschichold and his wife were arrested. During the arrest, Soviet posters were found in his flat, casting him under suspicion of collaboration with communists. All copies of Tschichold’s books were seized by the Gestapo “for the protection of the German people”. After six weeks a policeman somehow found him tickets for Switzerland, and he and his family managed to escape Nazi Germany in August 1933.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Jan Tschichold (1902-1974)
Die Frau ohne Namen (The woman without a name)
1927
Lithographische Anstalt Gebr. Obpacher AG, Munich
Lithographic Institute Gebr. Obpacher AG, Munich
Letterpress

As part of the bauhauswoche berlin 2019 (Bauhaus week Berlin 2019) the Kunstbibliothek is showing an historical exhibition room by the Bauhaus artist László Moholy-Nagy.

This pioneering exhibition room, entitled Wohin geht die typographische Entwicklung? (Where is typography headed?), was first shown in May 1929 in the Martin-Gropius-Bau as part of the exhibition Neue Typographie (“New Typography”), organised by the Staatliche Kunstbibliothek. Moholy-Nagy had been invited to design a room presenting the future of typography. He came up with 78 wall charts with photos, texts and pictures, all of which have been preserved. The exhibition room can therefore be shown again, complemented by additional posters, letterheads, and other specimens of New Typography from the Kunstbibliothek collection.

Moreover, well-known posters and advertisements from the Kunstbibliothek collection in the style known as New Typography augment the Moholy-Nagy exhibition. The selection includes works by Willi Baumeister, A. M. Cassandre, Walter Dexel, Johannes Molzahn, Kurt Schwitters and Jan Tschichold. The functional graphic design of New Typography, a style of advertising designed by artists that gained wide acceptance in the 1920s, broke with a long design tradition in the printing trade. Its aim was to create a contemporary design: first by propagating a standardisation of fonts and the industrial DIN norms, and second, by promoting ideals of readability, clarity and directness in keeping with the principles of Constructivist Art.

The exhibition focuses on this large-scale presentation with which artist Moholy-Nagy summed up years of his own teaching work at the Bauhaus and the ideas and visions of New Typography, ranging from Jan Tschichold and Willi Baumeister to Herbert Bayer. The exhibition programme includes evening discussions evaluating Moholy-Nagy’s ideas from a contemporary standpoint. An important part of the programme will be the launch of a new publication on Moholy-Nagy’s historical exhibition, edited in collaboration with Gutenberg Design Lab at Mainz University of Applied Sciences.

Text from the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin website

Installation view of the exhibition László Moholy-Nagy and New Typography: A Reconstruction of a Berlin Exhibition from 1929 at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin showing at right, Paul Schuitema’s 13 Tentoonstelling van Schilderijen en Beeldhouw 1927
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Paul Schuitema (1897-1973)
13 Tentoonstelling van Schilderijen en Beeldhouw (13 Exhibition of Paintings and Sculptures) (installation view)
1927
Kühn & Zoon printing house, Rotterdam
Lithograph
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Paul Schuitema (1897-1973)
13 Tentoonstelling van Schilderijen en Beeldhouw (13 Exhibition of Paintings and Sculptures)
1927
Kühn & Zoon printing house, Rotterdam
Lithograph

Paul Schuitema

Geert Paul Hendrikus Schuitema (February 27, 1897 in Groningen – October 25, 1973 in Wassenaar) was a Dutch graphic artist. He also designed furniture and expositions and worked as photographer, film director, painter and teacher for publicity design at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague.

Industrial design

Schuitema studied at the Academie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Rotterdam. In the 1920s, he began to work on graphic design, applying the principles of De Stijl and constructivism to commercial advertising. Along with Gerard Kiljan and his famous colleague Piet Zwart, he followed ideas pioneered in the Soviet Union by El Lissitzky and Rodchenko, in Poland by Henryk Berlewi and in Germany by Kurt Schwitters.

During his employment at the NV Maatschappij Van Berkel Patent scale company in Rotterdam, Schuitema gained recognition for his original designs of stationery and publicity material, often using only the colours black, red and white and bold sans serif fonts. From 1926 on, he started working with photomontages, becoming one of the pioneers of this technique in the field of industrial design.

Even though he was a convinced socialist and often designed leftist publications directed at industrial workers, Schuitema also worked for major companies, such as Philips.

Text from the Wikipedia website

László Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian, 1895-1946)
Wohin geht die typographische Entwicklung?, Tafel 1
Where is typography headed? Chart 1
1929
Photograph on card
© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstbibliothek

László Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian, 1895-1946)
Wohin geht die typographische Entwicklung?, Tafel 12
Where is typography headed? Chart 12
1929
Photograph on card
© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstbibliothek

László Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian, 1895-1946)
Wohin geht die typographische Entwicklung?, Tafel 22
Where is typography headed? Chart 22
1929
Photograph on card
© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstbibliothek

László Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian, 1895-1946)
Wohin geht die typographische Entwicklung?, Tafel 34
Where is typography headed? Chart 34
1929
Photograph on card
© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstbibliothek

László Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian, 1895-1946)
Wohin geht die typographische Entwicklung?, Tafel 44
Where is typography headed? Chart 44
1929
Photograph on card
© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstbibliothek

Kurt Schwitters (German, 1887-1948)
Merz 11 Pelikan Nummer, Zeitschrift (Merz 11 Pelikan number, magazine)
1924
© Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Kurt Schwitters

Kurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters (20 June 1887 – 8 January 1948) was a German artist who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including dadaism, constructivism, surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography, and what came to be known as installation art. He is most famous for his collages, called Merz Pictures.

Internationalism, 1922-1937

Merz (periodical)

As the political climate in Germany became more liberal and stable, Schwitters’ work became less influenced by Cubism and Expressionism. He started to organise and participate in lecture tours with other members of the international avant-garde, such as Hans Arp, Raoul Hausmann and Tristan Tzara, touring Czechoslovakia, the Netherlands, and Germany with provocative evening recitals and lectures.

Schwitters published a periodical, also called Merz, between 1923 and 1932, in which each issue was devoted to a central theme. Merz 5 1923, for instance, was a portfolio of prints by Hans Arp, Merz 8/9, 1924, was edited and typeset by El Lissitsky, Merz 14/15, 1925, was a typographical children’s story entitled The Scarecrow by Schwitters, Kätte Steinitz and Theo van Doesburg. The last edition, Merz 24, 1932, was a complete transcription of the final draft of the Ursonate, with typography by Jan Tschichold.

His work in this period became increasingly Modernist in spirit, with far less overtly political context and a cleaner style, in keeping with contemporary work by Hans Arp and Piet Mondrian. His friendship around this time with El Lissitzky proved particularly influential, and Merz pictures in this period show the direct influence of Constructivism.

Thanks to Schwitters’ lifelong patron and friend Katherine Dreier, his work was exhibited regularly in the US from 1920 onwards. In the late 1920s he became a well-known typographer; his best-known work was the catalogue for the Dammerstocksiedlung in Karlsruhe. After the demise of Der Sturm Gallery in 1924 he ran an advertising agency called Merzwerbe, which held the accounts for Pelikan inks and Bahlsen biscuits, amongst others, and became the official typographer for Hanover town council between 1929 and 1934. Many of these designs, as well as test prints and proof sheets, were to crop up in contemporary Merz pictures. In a manner similar to the typographic experimentation by Herbert Bayer at the Bauhaus, and Jan Tschichold’s Die neue Typographie, Schwitters experimented with the creation of a new more phonetic alphabet in 1927. Some of his types were cast and used in his work. In the late 1920s Schwitters joined the Deutscher Werkbund (German Work Federation).

Exile, 1937-1948

Norway

As the political situation in Germany under the Nazis continued to deteriorate throughout the 1930s, Schwitters’ work began to be included in the Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) touring exhibition organised by the Nazi party from 1933. He lost his contract with Hanover City Council in 1934 and examples of his work in German museums were confiscated and publicly ridiculed in 1935. By the time his close friends Christof and Luise Spengemann and their son Walter were arrested by the Gestapo in August 1936 the situation had clearly become perilous.

On 2 January 1937 Schwitters, wanted for an “interview” with the Gestapo, fled to Norway to join his son Ernst, who had already left Germany on 26 December 1936. His wife Helma decided to remain in Hanover, to manage their four properties. In the same year, his Merz pictures were included in the Entartete Kunst exhibition titled in Munich, making his return impossible.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Egon Juda (German, b. 1895)
Einladung zur Ausstellung “Neue Typographie” (Invitation to the exhibition “New Typography”)
Berlin 1929
© Kunstbibliothek, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

Installation views of the exhibition László Moholy-Nagy and New Typography: A Reconstruction of a Berlin Exhibition from 1929 at the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin showing at right,
Photos: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

László Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian, 1895-1946)
Prospekttitelblatt (Prospectus title page) (installation view)
1928
film und foto
1929

László Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian, 1895-1946)
Wohin geht die typographische Entwicklung?
Where is typography headed?
1929
Photograph on card
© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Kunstbibliothek
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

László Moholy-Nagy (Hungarian, 1895-1946)
14 Bauhausbücher
1928
Letterpress
5 7/8 x 8 1/4″ (14.9 x 21cm)

Johannes Molzahn (1892-1965)
Wohung und Werkraum, Werkbundausstellung in Breslau (Apartment and workshop, Werkbund exhibition in Breslau) (installation view)
1929
Schenkalowsky, Breslau (Wroclaw) printing house
Lithograph
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Johannes Ernst Ludwig Molzahn

Johannes Ernst Ludwig Molzahn was born 21 May 1892 in Duisburg. He learned drawing and photography, but later concentrated on painting. 1908-1914 he stayed in Switzerland. Molzahn became acquainted with Herwarth Walden, Walter Gropius, Theo van Doesburg and El Lissitzky. He was a member of the Arbeitsrat für Kunst. After World War I he worked as a graphic designer and through intervention of Bruno Taut became a graphics teacher in Magdeburg. He was forbidden to work by the Nazis in 1933 and fired.Eight of his works were shown in the exhibition of entartete Kunst in 1937.

He emigrated to the United States in 1938 and returned to Germany 1959, settling in Munich. He died there 31 December 1965.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Johannes Molzahn (1892-1965)
Wohung und Werkraum, Werkbundausstellung in Breslau (Apartment and workshop, Werkbund exhibition in Breslau)
1929
Schenkalowsky, Breslau (Wroclaw) printing house
Lithograph

1929 (installation view)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Kunstbibliothek
Matthäikirchplatz
10785 Berlin

Opening hours:
Sunday 11.00 – 18.00
Monday closed
Tuesday 10.00 – 18.00
Wednesday 10.00 – 18.00
Thursday 10.00 – 18.00
Friday 10.00 – 18.00
Saturday 11.00 – 18.00

Staatliche Museen zu Berlin website

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Nov

European art research tour: Pinball art at the Flippermúzeum, Budapest

By Dr Marcus Bunyan Leave a Comment

Categories: American, designer, exhibition, illustration, light, sculpture, space, surrealism and time
Tags: Apollo 13, Apollo 13 pinball, arcade game, arcade games, backglass, backglass and cabinet art, backglass art, backglasses, Beat Time, Beat Time pinball, Buckaroo, Buckaroo pinball, Budapest Pinball Museum, Capt. Fantastic and the Dirt Brown Cowboy, Capt. Fantastic and the Dirt Brown Cowboy pinball, Capt. Fantastic pinball, Centaur, Centaur pinball, circus, Circus pinball, Cop Land, Dancing Lady, Dancing Lady pinball, Diner pinball, Dr. Dude And His Excellent Ray, Dr. Dude pinball, Elivra Mistress of the Dark, Elvira, Elvira and the Party Monsters, Elvira and the Party Monsters pinball, Farfalla, Farfalla pinball, Fathom, Fathom pinball, Fish Tales, Fish Tales pinball, Flippermúzeum, Flippermúzeum Budapest, flippers, FunHouse, FunHouse pinball, game play, graphic art, graphic artist, graphic design, Here Comes the Bride!, Humpty Dumpty, Humpty Dumpty pinball, Hyperball, Hyperball pinball, Jalopy, Jalopy pinball, knocking, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein pinball, masquerade, Masquerade pinball, Medusa, Medusa pinball, pinball, pinball art, pinball artwork, pinball graphic art, pinball graphic design, pinball high score, pinball machine, Rocky, Rocky pinball, Roto Pool, Roto Pool pinball, Scared Stiff, Scared Stiff pinball, Sega Basketball, Space Invaders, Space Invaders pinball, Special scores, The Addams Family, The Addams Family pinball, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man pinball, The Getaway pinball, The Getaway: High Speed II, The Getaway: High Speed II pinball, The Greatest Pinball On Earth!, The Machine pinball, The Machine: Bride of Pinbot, The Machine: Bride of Pinbot pinball, The Sexiest Vampire this side of Transylvania, Tic-Tac-Toe, Tic-Tac-Toe pinball, Tommy, translite, Triple Action, Triple Action pinball, Wizard!, Wizard! pinball, Xenon, Xenon pinball

Visited September 2019 posted November 2020

Bally Manufacturing Corporation (1931-1983)
Scared Stiff (detail)
1996
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Pinball Wizard

Thanks to playing pinball, I’ve had my name up in lights as “highest scorer” in New York, Paris and London – just like the perfume bottles – and also Melbourne, Mentone (a suburb of the city), Adelaide and various other places around the world. As luck and skill would have it, on my recent trip around Europe, I scored highest score on Scared Stiff (1996, above and below) in a gay sauna – where else you might ask! – in Budapest. A surreal experience.

Along with my friends Jeff and Woody, I have been an addicted pinball playing wizard for many years. I love the sounds, the colour, the movement; the frenzy of the multiball (during which the flashing lights and noise serve to distract the player from the position of the balls), the exultation of the knocker when you score a replay; and the ultimate elation of becoming the highest scorer on the machine. Good fun is to be had, a test of skill and concentration in order to beat the machine and score a replay.

To say that I was in my element at the Flippermúzeum, Budapest is an understatement. Situated in a suitably dark underground cavern, and after paying the entry fee, you can play all the pinballs for free for as long as you want. There are “more than 140 machines, making the venue one of the biggest ongoing pinball collections in Europe… Some of the exhibition’s older pieces qualify as truly unique antiques, like the first pinball machines ever made with flippers, dating back to 1947.” Photographs of this pinball made by D. Gottlieb & Co. named Humpty Dumpty can be seen in the posting below. This is the oldest pinball I have ever played. Note that the flippers are not at the bottom of the machine, but in three pairs at the side of the machine. I found it very difficult to play, as the ball was easily lost between the large gap at the bottom, once the ball had made its way past the side mounted flippers. Other early idiosyncrasies were the outward facing flippers on Williams’ Jalopy (1951, below), and the fact that you got 5 balls for your money on the early machines, whereas today you only get 3.

The graphic art of the backglass and cabinet art add immeasurably to the playing experience. The art is linked to the theme of the particular machine and is often film, sci-fi, circus or mythically based – innovative, funny and sometimes lascivious – totally un-PC. In games up to the 1980s the eye-catching graphics would often objectify women, depicting them as playthings to be won (Genco’s Triple Action 1948, with graphic roots in the nose art of Second World War bombers), or portray them as available, large-breasted women in skimpy clothing (see Bally’s Wizard 1975; Bally’s Elvira and the Party Monsters 1989; and Bally’s Dr. Dude And His Excellent Ray 1990). In house jokes abound, such as the drum kit being named “The Bootles” in Williams’ Beat Time (1967) and “Gravestone Pizza Dig it!” in Bally’s Elvira and the Party Monsters 1989. My particular favourite graphic in this selection is Williams’ The Machine: Bride of Pinbot (1991) where humans work to repair the Metropolis-like robot, her leg lighting up in millions the closer you reach the jackpot. Completely sexist, completely over the top but fantastic, fantasy art nevertheless.

Ultimately for me, playing pinball is a complete melding between human and machine, a space where you loose yourself in the moment and movement of the ball(s), and the sights and sounds of the machine. On a good day when I am playing I become one with the machine, lost in time and space. Your concentration is so intense that nothing else matters. I remember playing a pinball up in Circular Quay in Sydney, and I was going so well that I had people two deep watching me play. What a blast!

Dr Marcus Bunyan

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All iPhone images Dr Marcus Bunyan. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

“Two kind of people in this world; pinball people and video game people. You, Freddy, you’re pinball people.”

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Gary Figgis (Ray Liotta) in the movie Cop Land (1997)

Bally Manufacturing Corporation (1931-1983)
Scared Stiff (detail)
1996
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

“So fun, It’s Scary!”
“Elvira has the features that turn players on.”

Special scores

High score lists: If a player attains one of the highest scores ever (or the highest score on a given day), they are invited to add their initials to a displayed list of high-scorers on that particular machine. “Bragging rights” associated with being on the high-score list are a powerful incentive for experienced players to master a new machine.

Pinball designers also entice players with the chance to win an extra game or replay. Ways to get a replay might include the following:

Replay Score: An extra game is rewarded if the player exceeds a specified score. Some machines allow the operator to set this score to increase with each consecutive game in which the replay score is achieved, in order to prevent a skilled player from gaining virtually unlimited play on one credit by simply achieving the same replay score in every game.
Special: A mechanism to get an extra game during play is usually called a “special.” Typically, some hard-to-reach feature of the game will light the outlanes (the areas to the extreme left and right of the flippers) for special. Since the outlanes always lose the ball, having “special” there makes it worth shooting for them (and is usually the only time, if this is the case).
Match: At the end of the game, if a set digit of the player’s score matches a random digit, an extra game is rewarded.[61] In earlier machines, the set digit was usually the ones place; after a phenomenon often referred to as score inflation had happened (causing almost all scores to end in 0), the set digit was usually the tens place. The chances of a match appear to be 1 in 10, but the operator can alter this probability – the default is usually 7% in all modern Williams and Bally games for example. Other non-numeric methods are sometimes used to award a match.
High Score: Most machines award 1-3 bonus games if a player gets on the high score list. Typically, one or two credits are awarded for a 1st – 4th place listing, and three for the Grand Champion.

When an extra game is won, the machine typically makes a single loud bang, most often with a solenoid that strikes a piece of metal, or the side of the cabinet, with a rod, known as a knocker, or less commonly with loudspeakers. “Knocking” is the act of winning an extra game when the knocker makes the loud and distinctive noise.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Bally flyer for the Scared Stiff pinball (1996)

“The Sexiest Vampire this side of Transylvania”

Installation view of the exhibition of pinball art at the Flippermúzeum, Budapest showing from left to right, Williams Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991); Data East USA, Inc. Tales from the Crypt (1993); Data East USA, Inc. The Who’s Tommy Pinball Wizard (1994)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition of pinball art at the Flippermúzeum, Budapest showing from left to right, Gottlieb’s Caveman (1982); Gottlieb’s the Amazing Spiderman (1980); Gottlieb’s Circus (1980); Gottlieb’s Pink Panther (1981); and Gottlieb’s Rocky (1982)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition of pinball art at the Flippermúzeum, Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition of pinball art at the Flippermúzeum, Budapest showing at left, Zaccaria’s FarFalla (1983); at second left, Game Plan, Inc. Attila the Hun (1984); and at right back, Bally’s Rolling Stones (1980)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition of pinball art at the Flippermúzeum, Budapest showing from left to right, Gottlieb’s Centigrade 37 (1977); Recel S. A. Criterium 75 (1978); Chicago Coin Machine Mfg. Co. Sound Stage (1976)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition of pinball art at the Flippermúzeum, Budapest showing at left, Bally’s Medusa (1981); and at second left, Bally’s Xenon (1980); and at right, Gottlieb’s Haunted House (1982)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition of pinball art at the Flippermúzeum, Budapest showing from left to right, Williams Beat Time (1967); Bally’s Wizard! featuring Ann Margret and Roger Daltrey (1975); and Bally’s Capt. Fantastic and the Dirt Brown Cowboy featuring Elton John (1976)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Budapest Pinball Museum magnet

Budapest Pinball Museum

Budapest Pinball Museum deploys more than 140 machines (pinball, arcade video cabinets and other games), making the venue one of the biggest ongoing pinball collections in Europe. All of our games are set to free play. Some of the exhibition’s older pieces qualify as truly unique antiques, like the first pinball machines ever made with flippers, dating back to 1947. Some of pinball’s predecessors are also on display, such as the unique bagatelles from the 1880s. It is the most popular museum in Hungary, usually in the top 10 out of some 600 Budapest tourist attractions on Tripadvisor.

Pinballs are time machines

It might as well be the occasion of an anniversary. It was a quarter of a century ago that legendary Data East marketed a pinball called the Time Machine. This name has got a symbolic meaning ever since. Today all pinballs have transformed into a time machine, remnants of an old age. Their natural environment, the arcade has been outdated since then, yet we can find an ever increasing number of pinballs at collectors.

The moment that dwells in our memories will never pass, never fade away: the moment as we were standing in front of the machines or waiting our turn at the arcade. Beyond the lights, colours and sounds of pinballs, a mystical children’s dreamworld is still shaping for us. A dreamworld that is still alive in us adults, even as we read this.

This dreamworld, these lights, these colours and sounds will be reawaken by our ‘time machines’, at our carefully selected exhibition. Our inner Child is inviting us for an encounter we will never forget.

It was the 70’s: that’s where my love for pinball has really started, by the way. I have encountered first with these tinkling machines at camp sites and arcades of my childhood. Pinballs have been thrilling me ever since: anytime the opportunity arises, I try new ones out. I have met many people during the last four years who share my passion for pinball. This also encouraged me to set up an ‘institute’, with pinballs playing the main role, offering however, experiences also for those interested in the history of technology and for the pinball rookie.

In April 2013 I have finally succeeded in my endeavours: I was granted license to open the museum / exhibition. Pbal Gallery opened at last to the public on April 10th, 2014.

You’re welcome to join an unforgettable time travel at the gallery!

Balázs Pálfi (owner)

Text from the Flippermúzeum, Budapest [Online] Cited 03/11/2020

D. Gottlieb & Co. (1931-1977)
Humpty Dumpty
1947
6,500 produced
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

“Announcing… The Greatest Triumph in Pin Game History – Sensationally New Player Controlled Flipper Bumpers..The player will Laugh! The Spectator will Roar! The operator will be Thrilled!”

The very first FLIPPER Game. Harry Mabs invented the Flipper with this machine.

This is the oldest pinball I have ever played. Note that the flippers are not at the bottom of the machine, but in three pairs at the side of the machine. I found it very difficult to play, as the ball was easily lost between the large gap.

Humpty Dumpty flyer

Williams Electronic Games, Inc. (1967-1985)
Jalopy
1951
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Note the outward facing flippers, and the non-central exit lanes. Also, this is a five ball game, whereas later games are only 3 ball games. If you get a replay in 1 ball, you get 10 free replays. YOUR JALOPY is a WINNAH!

D. Gottlieb & Co. (1931-1977)
Roto Pool (detail)
1958
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Genco Manufacturing Company (Chicago, Illinois, USA, 1931-1958)
Triple Action
1948
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Williams Electronic Games, Inc. (1967-1985)
Tic-Tac-Toe (detail)
1959
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

D. Gottlieb & Co. (1931-1977)
Buckaroo (detail)
1965
2,600 produced
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Sega
Basketball
1966
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Sega Basketball flyer

D. Gottlieb & Co. (1931-1977)
Dancing Lady
1966
2,675 produced
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Dancing Lady exists in 2 versions – the Serial-Run had a new, larger Top with a completely new designed Glass in different colours (above). Test-Samples (approximately 100 to 150 Machines) from Summer / Autumn 1966 had slightly different Art on the lower Playboard and a complete different, more colourful and smaller Backglass, because the Serial-Run from December 1966 used the new and much higher Backbox. This new sort of Backbox was used for the Four-Players until 1977 while the Two-Players still used the smaller Backbox.

Text from the Pinside website [Online] Cited 04/11/2020

D. Gottlieb & Co. (1931-1977)
Masquerade (detail)
1966
3,662 produced
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Williams Electronic Games, Inc. (1967-1985)
Beat Time (detail)
1967
2,802 produced
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Bally Manufacturing Corporation (1931-1983)
Wizard! (details)
1975
10,005 produced
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Wizard!, released in May 1975, was Bally’s highest production flipper game to that date with over 10,000 units produced. The game comes at the tail end of Bally’s electromechanical production schedule, and sets the stage for the company’s solid state success in the years to follow. Widely regarded as one of the first proper licensed games in pinball history, Wizard! features the likenesses of Ann Margret and Roger Daltrey, stars of the 1976 Ken Russell film Tommy (a screen adaptation of the Who’s rock opera of the same name). Other than its classic theme, Wizard! is notable as being the first game to showcase playfield “flip flags”, a feature used on only a handful of other Bally games.

Text from the Pinside website [Online] Cited 04/11/2020

Wizard! flyer

Pinball

Pinball is a type of arcade game, in which points are scored by a player manipulating one or more metallic balls on a play field inside a glass-covered cabinet called a pinball machine. The primary objective of the game is to score as many points as possible. Many modern pinball machines include a “storyline” where the player must complete certain objectives in a certain fashion to complete the story, usually earning high scores for different methods of completing the game. Different numbers of points are earned when the ball strikes different targets on the play field. A drain is situated at the bottom of the play field, partially protected by player-controlled paddles called flippers. A game ends after all the balls fall into the drain a certain number of times. Secondary objectives are to maximise the time spent playing (by earning “extra balls” and keeping the ball in play as long as possible), and to earn bonus credits by achieving a high enough score or through other means.

Backglass

The backglass is a vertical graphic panel mounted on the front of the backbox, which is the upright box at the top back of the machine. The backglass contains the name of the machine and eye-catching graphics; in games up to the 1980s the artwork would often portray large-breasted women in skimpy clothing. The score displays (lights, mechanical wheels, an LED display, or a dot-matrix display depending on the era) would be on the backglass, and sometimes also a mechanical device tied to game play, for example, elevator doors that opened on an image or a woman swatting a cat with a broom such as on Williams’ 1989 “Bad Cats”. For older games, the backglass image is screen printed in layers on the reverse side of a piece of glass; in more recent games, the image is imprinted into a translucent piece of plastic-like material called a translite which is mounted behind a piece of glass and which is easily removable. The earliest games did not have backglasses or backboxes and were little more than playfields in boxes. Games are generally built around a particular theme, such as a sport or character and the backglass art reflects this theme to attract the attention of players. Recent machines are typically tied into other enterprises such as a popular film series, toy, or brand name. The entire machine is designed to be as eye-catching as possible to attract players and their money; every possible space is filled with colourful graphics, blinking lights, and themed objects, and the backglass is usually the first artwork the players see from a distance. Since the artistic value of the backglass may be quite impressive, it is not uncommon for enthusiasts to use a deep frame around a backglass (lighted from behind) and hang it as art after the remainder of the game is discarded.

Text from the Wikipedia website

Bally Manufacturing Corporation (1931-1983)
Capt. Fantastic and the Dirt Brown Cowboy (detail)
1976
16,155 produced
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

‘Capt. Fantastic’ was inspired by the movie ‘Tommy’ and includes a representation of Elton John, as his character from the movie, playing pinball on the backglass. The game name, however, is the title of Elton John’s 1975 autobiographical song and album where “Captain Fantastic” was Elton and “The Brown Dirt Cowboy” was his then-lyricist Bernie Taupin. Included in the song lyrics are the words “From the end of the world to your town” which appear at the very top center of the backglass.

Text from the The Internet Pinball Machine Database website [Online] Cited 04/11/2020

Bally Manufacturing Corporation (1931-1983)
Space Invaders (detail)
1980
11,400 produced
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

The alien depicted on the backglass was deemed an unlicensed use of the one used in the 1979 Hollywood movie Alien. Some playfield art elements and game sounds were borrowed from the 1978 ‘Space Invaders’ video game which was still popular at the time that this pinball machine came out.

Text from the The Internet Pinball Machine Database website [Online] Cited 04/11/2020

D. Gottlieb & Company, a Columbia Pictures Industries Company (1977-1983)
The Amazing Spider-Man (details)
1980
7,625 produced
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

D. Gottlieb & Company, a Columbia Pictures Industries Company (1977-1983)
Circus (detail)
1980
1,700 produced
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

“The Greatest Pinball On Earth!”

Circus flyer

Bally Manufacturing Corporation (1931-1983)
Xenon
1980
11,000 produced
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Bally Manufacturing Corporation (1931-1983)
Centaur (detail)
1981
3,700 produced
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Centaur flyer

Bally Manufacturing Corporation (1931-1983)
Medusa (detail)
1981
3,250 produced
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

“Bally MEDUSA… A Legend of Features”

Bally Manufacturing Corporation (1931-1983)
Fathom
1981
3,500 produced
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Williams Electronics Incorporated (1967-1985)
Hyperball (details)
1981
5,000 produced
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

D. Gottlieb & Company, a Columbia Pictures Industries Company (1977-1983)
Rocky (detail)
1982
1,504 produced
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Zaccaria (Bologna, Italy, 1974-1987)
Farfalla
1983
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Farfalla is Italian for “butterfly”

Bally (Midway Manufacturing Company) (Chicago, 1988-1999)
Elvira and the Party Monsters (details)
1989
4,000 produced
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

“Monstrous Pinball”
“You’re Gonna Have a Ball!”
“When They Named a Game After Me, It Had to be Built!”

Williams Electronic Games (1985-1999)
Diner (detail)
1990
3,552 produced
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Bally (Midway Manufacturing Company) (Chicago, 1988-1999)
Dr. Dude And His Excellent Ray (details)
1990
4,000 produced
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

“Get Hip! Earn Respect! Be the Envy of your Friends!”

Dr. Dude And His Excellent Ray flyer

Williams Electronic Games (1985-1999)
FunHouse (details)
1990
10,750 produced
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

“Get Hip! Earn Respect! Be the Envy of your Friends!”

FunHouse backglass

FunHouse flyer

Williams Electronic Games (1985-1999)
The Machine: Bride of Pinbot (details)
1991
8,100 produced
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

“Here Comes the Bride!”
“Watch Her Turn Heads!”

Artist John Youssi provided us the following information:

“I painted the backglass based on a rough sketch Python [Anghelo] gave me. I re-sketched the whole thing, adding detail while tightening it up. Python was the artist for the cabinet while Kevin O’Connor inked only. I remember Python doing all the art except for the backglass. Plus it all looks like his style.”

Text from the The Internet Pinball Machine Database website [Online] Cited 04/11/2020

The Machine: Bride of Pinbot flyer

Williams Electronic Games (1985-1999)
Fish Tales (detail)
1992
13,640 produced
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

“Catch Em All – Hook Line and Sinker”

Bally (Midway Manufacturing Company) (Chicago, 1988-1999)
The Addams Family (detail)
1992
20,270 produced
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Williams Electronic Games (1985-1999)
The Getaway: High Speed II (detail)
1992
13,259 produced
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Sega Pinball Incorporated (Chicago, Illinois, USA, 1994-1999)
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
1995
3,000 produced
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Sega Pinball Incorporated (Chicago, Illinois, USA, 1994-1999)
Apollo 13
1995
2,000 produced
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

“I Believe this will be Our Finest Hour.”
“`Apollo 13 the Pinball’ is on the Launch Pad with All Systems Go!”
“The First Game in the Universe with 13 Ball Multiball!”

Flippermúzeum
Radnóti Miklós utca 18.
1137, Budapest, Hungary

Opening hours:
Wednesday – Friday 16.00 – 24.00
Saturday 14.00 – 24.00
Sunday 10.00 – 22.00
Monday/Tuesday: CLOSED

Flippermúzeum website

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Nov

European art research tour: Vasarely Museum, Budapest permanent exhibition

By Dr Marcus Bunyan Leave a Comment

Categories: beauty, designer, drawing, exhibition, existence, gallery website, light, memory, painting, reality, sculpture, space, time and works on paper
Tags: Amir (Rima), Az Ujság Hirdetés, Bi-Octans, Chess Set, composition, Deep kinetic object, Eroed-Pre, Estudio del movimiento (El hombre), geometric art, geometric composition, geometric painting, Gesture Drawings, Gizeh, Ground Plans, Hombre en movimiento, Hommage à Johann Sebastian Bach, Hungarian Graphics, Kotzka, Kroa-MC, Les dessins et composition de Vasarely, Lom-Lan 2, Magyar Grafika, Man in motion, Marsan, Marsan-2, MORA, Naissances, Norma, Oeuvre profonde cinétique, Op Art, Optical Art, Orion noir, Ouivar, Pre-Kinetic Studies and Naissances, Prekinetic Study, Preliminary study for the kinetic theory, Quivar, Sonora, Stri-Oet, Stridio-Z, Study of Motion (The Man), The Newspaper is Advertised, The Responsive Eye, Tri-Axo, Trybox, V.P. 102, Vasarely Museum, Vega Mir, Versant, Victor Vasarely, Victor Vasarely Amir (Rima), Victor Vasarely Bi-Octans, Victor Vasarely Bull, Victor Vasarely Chess Set, Victor Vasarely Composition, Victor Vasarely Eroed-Pre, Victor Vasarely Gesture Drawings, Victor Vasarely Gizeh, Victor Vasarely Kotzka, Victor Vasarely Kroa-MC, Victor Vasarely Lom-Lan 2, Victor Vasarely Man in motion, Victor Vasarely Marsan, Victor Vasarely Marsan-2, Victor Vasarely MORA, Victor Vasarely Museum, Victor Vasarely Naissances, Victor Vasarely Norma, Victor Vasarely Orion noir, Victor Vasarely Ouivar, Victor Vasarely Quivar, Victor Vasarely Sonora, Victor Vasarely Stri-Oet, Victor Vasarely Stridio-Z, Victor Vasarely Tri-Axo, Victor Vasarely Trybox, Victor Vasarely V.P. 102, Victor Vasarely Vega Mir, Victor Vasarely Versant, Victor Vasarely Vessant (Versant), Victor Vasarely Vonal-Ket, Victor Vasarely Yllus, Victor Vasarely Zebras, Victor Vasarely Zebras. Prekinetic Study, Victor Vasarely Zilia, Vonal-Ket, William Seitz, William Seitz The responsive eye, Yllus, Zilia

Visited September 2019 posted November 2020

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Zebras. Prekinetic study (Preliminary study for the kinetic theory. Graphic Period, 1929-1939) (installation view)
1939
Gouache, pencil, colour and white chalk on paper
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

While on my European art trip in 2019, I ventured by tram to the deepest suburbs of Budapest to visit the Vasarely Museum on a Sunday – one of only three days the museum is open. The journey was an experience in itself. The reward was that I got to see an artists work I have always admired (I have a Vasarely serigraph in my collection), set in one of the most beautiful art galleries I have ever seen in my life. What’s not too like.

Critically, I got to examine Vasarely’s work up close and personal, on a large scale. I noted how gestural his work is, even as it is geometric – emerging from his Gesture Drawings. Ground Plans of 1946. There is a mesmerising flow to his compositions, even as they are supposedly set, fixed, in their mathematical complexity.

Even as Josef Albers explored colour in the belief that colours have no inherent emotional associations, so Vasarely investigated the formula for a “plastic alphabet”, a universal visual language based on the structural interplay of form and colour, a programmed language with an infinite number of form and colour variations. Through serialisation and the processes of re-creation, multiplication and expansion, “in pictures based on the mutual association between forms and colours, he claimed to perceive a ‘grammar’ of visual language, with which a set of basic forms making up a composition could be arranged into a system similar to musical notation… He regarded colour-forms as the cells or molecules out of which the universe was made.”

Don’t believe all that is written on the can. While both artists want to euthanise the authenticity of the hand, the feeling of he eye, and the beauty of the object through an investigation of concept, form and replication, when in the presence of these paintings, once, twice, three times, one cannot deny the intimacy of their construction.

Unlike flat reproductions of these paintings in books, their serial reproduction, in these installation photographs you can see the ripples in the surface of these paintings. Their meticulous, hand-crafted production. For example, look at the surface of paintings such as Lom-Lan 2 (1953, below); Marsan (1950 / 1955 / 1958, below); and Sonora (1973, below). From a distance their patterns are stable but optically disturbing. Up close, their surface dis/integrates into swirls and ripples at a molecular level. The musical annotation – colour, form, pattern, repetition – of these optical illusions is subsumed into an aura, an earthly divination of a transient ‘planetary folklore’.

Dr Marcus Bunyan

Downstairs galleries

View of the Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

View of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest showing at second left, Gesture Drawings. Ground Plans (1946); and at second right, Composition (1948)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Gesture Drawings. Ground Plans (installation view)
1946
Pencil on paper
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

The Galerie Denise René opened in 1944. Its first exhibition was Les dessins et composition de Vasarely (Vasarely’s drawings and graphic compositions). Surrealism influenced his works, and even caught the attention of André Breton. As Denise René recalled: ‘André Breton was even convinced we had found a Surrealist painter; it was mostly the trompe l’œils that made him think so, which abounded in Vasarely’s graphic innovations. Breton invited me and Vasarely to visit him in rue Fontaine. Éluard and Breton both came to see the exhibition, though on different days because Éluard had broken with Breton and Surrealism.’ Vasarely had a painterly turn. Shortly he made experimentations in gesture painting. (Victor Vasarely, Jazz, 1942, inv. V. 195) Later, despite his artistic discoveries, he described his earliest period as Les Fausses Routes (Wrong Roads).

Text from the Vasarely Museum website [Online] Cited 26/10/2020

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Hombre en movimiento – Estudio del movimiento (El hombre)
Man in motion. Study of Motion (The Man)
1943
Tempera on plywood
117 x 132cm
Vasarely Museum Budapest

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Composition (installation view)
1948
Oil on canvas
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Magyar Grafika (Hungarian Graphics)
Az Ujság Hirdetés (The Newspaper is Advertised) (installation view)
Edition 12
1931
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

A journal for the development of graphic industries and related professions. Budapest, 1. 1920 – 13. 1932

Installation views of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest with in the last photo at left, Versant (1952)
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Versant (installation view)
1952
Acrylic on plywood
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest with at right, Lom-Lan 2 (1953)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Lom-Lan 2 (installation view)
1953
Oil on fibreboard
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation views of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest showing the painting
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Amir (“Rima”) (installation view)
1953
Acrylic on plywood
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
MORA (Oeuvre profonde cinétique) (installation views)
1954/1960 (?) vagy 1955/1964 (?)
Deep kinetic object, silk screen on plexiglas, glass and steel
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest showing at left, Orion noir (1970); and at right, Norma (1962-1979)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Orion noir
1970
Acrylic on canvas
Vasarely Museum Budapest

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Norma (installation view)
1962-1979
Acrylic on canvas
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Chess Set
1980
Multiple, plexiglass
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest showing at left, Marsan-2 (1964/1974); at centre, Gizeh (1955/1962); and at right, Marsan (1950/1955/1958)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Marsan-2 (installation views)
1964/1974
Acrylic on canvas
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Gizeh (installation view)
1955/1962
Oil on canvas
Donation of Victor Vasarely, 1970
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Marsan (installation view)
1950/1955/1958
Oil on canvas
Donation of Victor Vasarely, 1970
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Naissances (installation view)
1954/1960
From the album Hommage à Johann Sebastian Bach (Éd. Pierre belford, Paris, 1973. Éxemplaire XIV/XX), Supplement no. 3.
Deep kinetic object, plexiglass, silk screen
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Zilia (installation view)
1981
Acrylic on canvas
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Stridio-Z (installation view)
1976-1977
Acrylic on canvas
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Tri-Axo (installation view)
1972/1976
Acrylic on canvas
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

William Seitz
The responsive eye (book cover)
Museum of Modern Art, 1965
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest showing Yllus (1978)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Yllus
1978
Acrylic on canvas
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Upstairs galleries

Installation view of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest showing V.P. 102 (1979)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
V.P. 102 (installation view)
1979
Acrylic on cardboard, mounted on plywood
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest showing at left in the display cabinet, KROA-MC (1969); and at centre, Quivar (Ouivar) (1974)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest showing at left, Eroed-Pre (1978); and at right, Quivar (Ouivar) (1974)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Eroed-Pre (installation view)
1978
Acrylic on canvas
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Quivar (Ouivar) (installation view)
1974
Collage, gouache on cardboard, mounted on plywood
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest showing at right, Stri-oet (1979)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Stri-oet (installation view)
1979
Acrylic on canvas
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest showing at left centre, Stri-oet (1979); and in the display cabinet, KROA-MC (1969). Love the reflection of the colours on the wall behind!
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest showing KROA-MC (1969)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest showing at left, Bull (1973/74); and at centre left, Orion noir (1963)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Bull (installation view)
1973/1974
Acrylic on canvas
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Vega Mir (Oeuvre profonde cinétique) (installation view)
1954/1960
From the album Hommage à Johann Sebastian Bach (Éd. Pierre belford, Paris, 1973. Éxemplaire XIV/XX), Supplement no. 1.
Multiple, silk screen on anodised aluminium
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Vega Mir (Oeuvre profonde cinétique) (installation view detail)
1954/1960
From the album Hommage à Johann Sebastian Bach (Éd. Pierre belford, Paris, 1973. Éxemplaire XIV/XX), Supplement no. 1.
Multiple, silk screen on anodised aluminium
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan. Self portrait with ‘Vega Mir’ 2019

Installation view of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest showing at left, Bi. Octans (1979)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Bi. Octans (installation view)
1979
Acrylic on canvas
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest showing at left, Kotzka (1973-1976); and at right, Trybox (1979)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Kotzka (installation view)
1973-1976
Acrylic on canvas
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Trybox (installation view)
1979
Acrylic on canvas
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest showing at centre right, Vonal-Ket (1972/1977)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Vonal-Ket (installation views)
1972/1977
Acrylic on canvas
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the Vasarely Museum, Budapest showing at centre left, Sonora (1973)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Victor Vasarely (Hungarian-French, 1906-1997)
Sonora (installation view)
1973
Acrylic on canvas
Vasarely Museum Budapest
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Vasarely Museum
1033, Budapest Szentlélek tér 6
Phone: + 36 1 388 7551

Opening hours:
Friday 11am – 4.00pm
Saturday – Sunday 11am – 4.00pm

Vasarely Museum website

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Jan

European research tour exhibition: ‘Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art’ at the Barbican Art Gallery, UK Part 2

By Dr Marcus Bunyan Leave a Comment

Categories: architecture, beauty, black and white photography, book, designer, drawing, existence, film, gallery website, illustration, light, London, memory, Paris, psychological, reality, space, time and works on paper
Tags: Aaron Douglas, Aaron Douglas Dance, Aaron Douglas Untitled (Dancers and Cityscape), Adolphe-Leon Wilette La Vierge verte, Adolphe-Leon Wilette The Green Virgin, Agony, Anita Berber, Aubette 63, Auguste and Louis Lumiere, Auguste and Louis Lumiere Film Lumiere no. 765, Ausblick im Nachtlokal, Barbican Art Gallery, Beauty Thee Will I Praise, Before the Performance, Berlin Weimar Nightlife 1920s-30s, Berliner Reise, Bierseidelbetrachtung I, Boohoo boohoo boohoo, Burial Ground, Cabaret Del Diavolo, Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art, Café Nollendorf, Cage cage cage, Camille Saint-Saëns, Camille Saint-Saëns Valse mignonne, Cave of the Golden Calf, Cave-dwellers, Chansonette, Chat Noir, Chat Noir 1880s-90s, Ciné-Dancing, Cocaine, Colette Omogbai, Colette Omogbai Agony, Curt Moreck, Curt Moreck Guide to 'Depraved' Berlin, Damenkneipe, Danse serpentine [II], design art and clubbing, Design for Deer Hunting Mural in the Cabaret Theatre Club, Design for Tiger Hunting Mural in the Cabaret Theatre Club, Devil's Dog, Dodo Burgner, Dodo Burgner Revue neger, Dodo Burgner Revue neger (Josephine Baker), Dodo Burgner The Fortune Teller, Drop curtain design, Edward Burra, Edward Burra Savoy Ballroom Harlem, Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler, Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler Ausblick im Nachtlokal, Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler Lissy, Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler View of a Nightclub, Erna Schmidt-Caroll, Erna Schmidt-Caroll Chansonette, Erna Schmidt-Caroll Singer, Faramarz Pilaram, Faramarz Pilaram Untitled (Composition 8), Fasting (Carnival), Film Lumiere no. 765, Final colour design for the screen wall of the Ciné-Dancing at L'Aubette, Folies Bergère, Folies Bergère La Danse du Feu, Gelede, George Auriol, George Auriol Programme for the Chat noir Theatre, George Auriol Théâtre du Chat Noir, George Grosz, George Grosz Beauty Thee Will I Praise, George Grosz Menschen in Cáfe, George Grosz People in a Cáfe, George Grosz Schönheit dich will ich preisen, Georgina Beier, Georgina Beier Gelede, Guide to 'Depraved' Berlin, Haller Revue Under and Over, Harlem Jazz Clubs and Cabarets, Harlem Jazz Clubs and Cabarets 1920s-40s, Heech and Hands, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec Miss Loïe Fuller, Henri Rivière, Henri Rivière and Henry Somm, Henri Rivière and Henry Somm shadow theatre, Henri Rivière Poster for the performances Clairs de lune, I'm a Clever Waterman, Ibadan, Ibadan & Osogbo Mbari Clubs, Ibadan & Osogbo Mbari Clubs 1961-66, Indian Dance, Interior courtyard of the Mbari Artists' and Writers' Club, Into the Night, Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art, Jeanne Mammen, Jeanne Mammen Bar, Jeanne Mammen Before the Performance, Jeanne Mammen Bierseidelbetrachtung I, Jeanne Mammen Café Nollendorf, Jeanne Mammen Fasting (Carnival), Jeanne Mammen Masked Ball, Jeanne Mammen Maskenball, Jeanne Mammen She Represents!, Jeanne Mammen Sie reprasentiert!, Jeanne Mammen The Contemplative Drinkers I, Jeanne Mammen Untitled (Vor dem Auftritt), Jeanne Mammen Vor dem Auftritt, Jitterbugs (II), Jitterbugs (III), Josephine Baker, Jules Chéret, Jules Chéret Folies Bergère, Jules Chéret The Fire Dance, Kamran Diba, Kamran Diba I'm a Clever Waterman, Karl Hofer, Karl Hofer Tiller Girls, Kermesse, L'Aubette, L'Aubette: Design for a composition for the floor of the café-brasserie and the café-restaurant, L'Aubette: Projet de composition pour le sol du café-brasserie et du café-restaurant, La Danse du Feu, La Loïe Fuller, La Vierge verte, Leyl Matine-Daftary, Leyl Matine-Daftary Still-life, Lissy, Loïe Fuller, Loïe Fuller 1890s, London Cave of the Golden Calf, Malangatana, Masked Ball, Maskenball, Max Beckmann, Max Beckmann Berliner Reise, Max Beckmann Nackttanz, Max Beckmann Trip to Berlin, Mbari clubs, Menschen in Cáfe, Miss Loïe Fuller, Muraina Oyelami, Muraina Oyelami Burial Ground, nightclubs and art, Otto Dix, Otto Dix Anita Berber, Paris Chat Noir 1880s-90s, Paris Loïe Fuller 1890s, Parviz Tanavoli, Parviz Tanavoli Boohoo boohoo boohoo, Parviz Tanavoli Cage cage cage, Parviz Tanavoli Heech and Hands, Pensdream, People in a Cáfe, Persian stories, Poster for the performances Clairs de lune, Programme for the Chat noir Theatre, Réouverture du cabaret du Chat Noir, Reopening of the Chat Noir Cabaret, Revue neger (Josephine Baker), Rudolf Schlichter Damenkneipe, Rudolf Schlichter Women's Club, saqqakhaneh, Savoy Ballroom Harlem, Schall und Rauch, Schönheit dich will ich preisen, She Represents!, Sie reprasentiert!, Simplicissimus, Slide on the Razor, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Sophie Taeuber-Arp Aubette 63, Spencer Gore, Spencer Gore Design for Deer Hunting Mural in the Cabaret Theatre Club, Spencer Gore Design for Tiger Hunting Mural in the Cabaret Theatre Club, Strasbourg L'Aubette, Tehran Rasht 29, Théâtre du Chat Noir, Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen, Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen Réouverture du cabaret du Chat Noir, Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen Reopening of the Chat Noir Cabaret, The Ciné-bal (cinema-ballroom) at Café L'Aubette, The Contemplative Drinkers I, The Fire Dance, The Fortune Teller, The Green Virgin, Theo van Doesburg, Theo van Doesburg Ciné-Dancing, Theo van Doesburg Final colour design for the screen wall of the Ciné-Dancing at L'Aubette, Tiller Girls, Topkeller, Troglodytes, Twins Seven-Seven, Twins Seven-Seven Devil's Dog, Twins Seven-Seven THE BEAUTIFUL LADY and THE FULLBODIED GENTLEMAN THAT REDUCED TO HEAD, Twins Seven-Seven Untitled (Devil's Dog), Uche Okeke, Uche Okeke murals, Uli Beier, Valente Malangatana Ngwenya, Valse mignonne, View of a Nightclub, Vor dem Auftritt, Weimar Nightlife, Weimar Nightlife 1920s-30s, William H. Johnson, William H. Johnson Jitterbugs (II), William H. Johnson Jitterbugs (III), Wintergarten, Women's Club, Wyndham Lewis, Wyndham Lewis Drop curtain design, Wyndham Lewis Indian Dance, Wyndham Lewis Kermesse, Yoruba myths and culture

Exhibition dates: 4th October 2019 – 19th January 2020

Visited October 2019 posted January 2020

Theo van Doesburg (Dutch, 1883-1931)
The Ciné-bal (cinema-ballroom) at Café L’Aubette, Strasbourg, designed by Theo van Doesburg
1926-28
Image: Collection Het Nieuwe Instituut, donation Van Moorsel, archive (code): DOES, inv.nr AB5252

Part 2 on this exceptional exhibition. Of particular interest here are:

the inspired paintings and drawings by Jeanne Mammen of Berlin nightlife which documents “the changing role of women and offer rare images of queer female desire.” Her work, associated with the New Objectivity and Symbolism movements, is incisive and sympathetic in its observation of difference and “depravity”. Her line is strong and the characterisation, assured;

Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler’s “scenes of Hamburg after dark [which] convey a raw sense of possibility through bold line, clashing colour and startling imagery.” The attitude of the hands in the painting Lissy (1931, below) balanced by the simplicity of the chair at left, and the furious line and bleeding, washes of watercolour of the men at the table at right – replete with their protruding, predatory teeth – make this a compelling image.

I think I might have found myself a new art hero.

Marcus

.
Many thankx to the Barbican Art Gallery for allowing me to publish the media photographs in the posting. All installation images are iPhone images by Dr Marcus Bunyan. Please click on the photographs for a larger version of the image.

Strasbourg: L’Aubette 1928 wall text
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art
Installation view Barbican Art Gallery 4 October 2019 – 19 January 2020
© Tristan Fewings / Getty Images

Installation views of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery, London
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Theo van Doesburg (Dutch, 1883-1931)
L’Aubette: Projet de composition pour le sol du café-brasserie et du café-restaurant (L’Aubette: Design for a composition for the floor of the café-brasserie and the café-restaurant) (installation view)
1927
Gouache and graphite pencil on tracing paper
Paris, Centre Pompidou – Museé national d’art moderne – Centre de création industrielle
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Theo van Doesburg (Dutch, 1883-1931)
Final colour design for the screen wall of the Ciné-Dancing at L’Aubette (installation view)
1927
East India ink and paint on paper
Collection Het Nieuwe Instituut, Rotterdam. Gift Van Moorsel
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Theo van Doesburg Ciné-Dancing wall text
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art (downstairs gallery, room recreation)
Installation view Barbican Art Gallery 4 October 2019 – 19 January 2020
© Tristan Fewings / Getty Images

Downstairs gallery, room recreation

Sophie Taeuber-Arp (Swiss, 1889-1943)
Aubette 63 (installation view)
1927
Gouache on paper
Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Paris: Loïe Fuller 1890s wall text
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Unknown photographer (attributed to Falk Studio)
Loïe Fuller
c. 1901
Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, Washington, DC

Auguste and Louis Lumiere
Film Lumiere no. 765, 1 – Danse serpentine [II]
c. 1897-99
Hand-coloured 35mm film
49 secs (complete clip)
Video: Marcus Bunyan

Magnificent! Not Loïe Fuller but one of her many imitators. She refused to be captured on film.

Installation views of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery, London showing the work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (French, 1864-1901)
Miss Loïe Fuller
1893
Bibliothèque de l’Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, Collections Jacques Doucet
Inv. no. NUM EM TOULOUSE-LAUTREC 49 e
Courtesy Bibliothèque de l’Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art, Collections Jacques Doucet

Jules Chéret (French, 1836-1932)
Fioles Bergère, La Loïe Fuller (installation view)
1893
Lithograph
Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Jules Chéret (French, 1836-1932)
Folies Bergère, La Danse du Feu (The Fire Dance) (installation view)
1897
Lithograph
Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Paris: Chat Noir 1880s-90s wall text
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Installation views of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery, London
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Henri Rivière (French, 1864-1951)
Poster for the performances Clairs de lune by Georges Fragerolle, L’honnête gendarme by Jean Richepin and Le treizième travail d’Hercule by Eugène Courboin (Le Chat Noir, 16 December 1896) (installation view)
Cliché and letterpress printing in black on wove paper on linen
58.7 cm x 42.2 cm
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation views of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery, London showing Henri Rivière and Henry Somm’s shadow theatre and wall text
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art (downstairs gallery, room recreation)
Installation view Barbican Art Gallery 4 October 2019 – 19 January 2020
© Tristan Fewings / Getty Images

Downstairs gallery, room recreation

Adolphe-Leon Wilette (French, 1857-1926)
La Vierge verte (The Green Virgin) (installation view)
c. 1881
Oil on canvas
Collection Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

In this oil study for a stained-glass window exhibited inside the cabaret, the black cat is held aloft in adoration under the full moon, as though part of an occult ceremony. The ‘chat’ noir’ of the cabaret’s title was celebrated throughout its design, symbolising fierce independence as well as night-time frolics. It gazes imperiously at the onlooker from Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen’s famous posters, perches on a crescent moon in Adolphe-Léon Willette’s street sign, and endangers pet goldfish in humorous cartoons.

Wall text

Installation view of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery, London
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen (Swiss-born French, 1859-1923)
Réouverture du cabaret du Chat Noir (Reopening of the Chat Noir Cabaret) (installation view)
1896
Lithograph
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Théophile-Alexandre Steinlen (Swiss-born French, 1859-1923)
Réouverture du cabaret du Chat Noir (Reopening of the Chat Noir Cabaret)
1896
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
© Victoria and Albert Museum, London

George Auriol (French, 1863-1938)
Théâtre du Chat Noir (Couverture aux coquelicots) (Programme for the Chat noir Theatre (Cover with Poppies)) (installation view)
1890
Photomechanical print
Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Opening 4 October 2019, Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art explores the social and artistic role of cabarets, cafés and clubs around the world. Spanning the 1880s to the 1960s, the exhibition presents a dynamic and multi-faceted history of artistic production. The first major show staged on this theme, it features both famed and little-known sites of the avant-garde – these creative spaces were incubators of radical thinking, where artists could exchange provocative ideas and create new forms of artistic expression. Into the Night offers an alternative history of modern art that highlights the spirit of experimentation and collaboration between artists, performers, designers, musicians and writers such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Loïe Fuller, Josef Hoffmann, Giacomo Balla, Theo van Doesburg and Sophie Taeuber-Arp, as well as Josephine Baker, Jeanne Mammen, Aaron Douglas, Jacob Lawrence, Ramón Alva de la Canal and Ibrahim El-Salahi.

Focusing on global locations from New York to Tehran, London, Paris, Mexico City, Berlin, Vienna and Ibadan, Into the Night brings together over 350 works rarely seen in the UK, including paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, films and archival material. Liberated from the confines of social and political norms, many of the sites provided immersive, often visceral experiences, manifesting the ideals of the artists and audiences who founded and frequented them. The exhibition features full-scale recreations of specific spaces, such as the multi-coloured ceramic tiled bar of the Cabaret Fledermaus in Vienna (1907), designed by Josef Hoffmann for the Wiener Werkstätte, and the striking abstract composition of the Ciné-Dancing designed by Theo van Doesburg for L’Aubette in Strasbourg (1926-28). The exhibition will feature a soundscape created by hrm199, the studio of acclaimed artist Haroon Mirza, specifically commissioned for the show.

Jane Alison, Head of Visual Arts, Barbican, said: “Into the Night casts a spotlight on some of the most electrifying cabarets and clubs of the modern era. Whether a creative haven, intoxicating stage or liberal hangout, all were magnets for artists, designers and performers to come together, collaborate and express themselves freely. Capturing the essence of these global incubators of experimentation and cross-disciplinarity, immersive 1:1 scale interiors will take the visitor on a captivating journey of discovery.”

Into the Night begins in Paris, on the eve of the 20th century, with two thrilling and iconic locations of the avant-garde. The theatrical shadow plays of the Chat Noir in the 1880s are brought to life through original silhouettes and works that decorated the interior of the cabaret, which acted as a forum for satire and debate for figures such as founder Rodolphe Salis, artist Henri Rivière and composer Erik Satie. The captivating serpentine dances of Loïe Fuller staged at the Folies Bergère in the 1890s were trail-blazing experiments in costume, light and movement. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec captured her performances in his extraordinary series of delicately hand-coloured lithographs, brought together for the exhibition. Visitors will encounter the immersive “Gesamtkunstwerk” (total work of art) design of the Cabaret Fledermaus (1907) in Vienna by the Wiener Werkstätte, where experimental cabaret productions were staged. The exhibition includes original documentation of Oskar Kokoschka’s exuberant puppet theatre and Gertrude Barrison’s expressionist dance.

The Cave of the Golden Calf (1912), an underground haunt in Soho epitomising decadence and hedonism, is evoked through designs for the interior by British artists Spencer Gore and Eric Gill, as well as Wyndham Lewis’s highly stylised programmes for the eclectic performance evenings – advertised at the time as encompassing “the picturesque dances of the South, its fervid melodies, Parisian wit, English humour.” In Zurich, the radical atmosphere of the Cabaret Voltaire (1916) is manifested through absurdist sound poetry and fantastical masks that deconstruct body and language, evoking the anarchic performances by Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings and Marcel Janco. This is the birthplace of Dada, where humour, chaos and ridicule reign. Two significant clubs in Rome provide insights into the electrifying dynamism of Futurism in Italy in the 1920s. Giacomo Balla’s mesmerising Bal Tic Tac (1921) is summoned by colour-saturated designs for the club’s interior, capturing the swirling movement of dancers. Also on show are drawings and furnishings for Fortunato Depero’s spectacular inferno-inspired Cabaret del Diavolo (1922) which occupied three floors representing heaven, purgatory and hell. Depero’s flamboyant tapestry writhes with dancing demons, expressing the club’s motto “Tutti all’inferno!!! (Everyone to hell!!!)”.

A few years later, a group of artists and writers from the radical movement Estridentismo, including Ramón Alva de la Canal, Manuel Maples Arce and Germán Cueto, began to meet at the Café de Nadie (Nobody’s Café) in Mexico City, responding to volatile Post-Revolutionary change and the urban metropolis. The ¡30-30! group expressed its values by holding a major print exhibition (partially reassembled here) in a travelling circus tent open to all. Meanwhile in Strasbourg, Theo van Doesburg, Hans Arp and Sophie Taeuber-Arp worked together to create the L’Aubette (1926-28), conceived as the ultimate “deconstruction of architecture”, with bold geometric abstraction as its guiding principle. The vast building housed a cinema-ballroom, bar, tearoom, billiards room, restaurant and more, each designed as immersive environments.

After a period of restraint in Germany during the First World War, the 1920s heralded an era of liberation and the relaxation of censorship laws. Numerous clubs and bars in metropolitan cities, such as Berlin, playing host to heady cabaret revues and daring striptease; the notorious synchronised Tiller Girls are captured in Karl Hofer’s iconic portrait. Major works by often overlooked female artists such as Jeanne Mammen and Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler, as well as George Grosz, Otto Dix and Max Beckmann, capture the pulsating energy of these nightclubs and the alternative lifestyles that flourished within them during the 1920s and 1930s. During the same time in New York, the literary and jazz scenes thrived and co-mingled in the predominantly African American neighbourhood of Harlem, where black identity was re-forged and debated. Paintings and prints by Aaron Douglas and Jacob Lawrence convey the vibrant atmosphere and complex racial and sexual politics of the time, while poetry by Langston Hughes and early cinema featuring Duke Ellington shed light on the rich range of creative expression thriving within the city.

Into the Night also celebrates the lesser known but highly influential Mbari Artists and Writers Club, founded in the early 1960s in Nigeria. Focusing on two of the club’s key locations, in Ibadan and Osogbo, the exhibition explores how they were founded as laboratories for postcolonial artistic practices, providing a platform for a dazzling range of activities – including open-air dance and theatre performances, featuring ground breaking Yoruba operas by Duro Ladipo and Fela Kuti’s Afro-jazz; poetry and literature readings; experimental art workshops; and pioneering exhibitions by African and international artists such as Colette Omogbai, Ibrahim El-Salahi and Uche Okeke. Meanwhile in Tehran, Rasht 29 emerged in1966 as a creative space for avant-garde painters, poets, musicians and filmmakers to freely discuss their practice. Spontaneous performances were celebrated and works by artists like Parviz Tanavoli and Faramarz Pilaram hung in the lounge while a soundtrack including Led Zeppelin and the Beatles played constantly.

The exhibition is curated and organised by Barbican Centre, London, in collaboration with the Belvedere, Vienna.

Press release from the Barbican Art Gallery [Online] Cited 28/12/2019

Berlin: Weimar Nightlife 1920s-30s wall text
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Rudolf Schlichter (German, 1890-1955)
Damenkneipe (Women’s Club)
c. 1925
Private collection
© Viola Roehr v. Alvensleben, Munich
Photo: akg-images

Rudolf Schlichter (German, 1890-1955)
Damenkneipe (Women’s Club) (installation view)
c. 1925
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view with Rudolf Schlichter’s Damenkneipe (Women’s Club) c. 1925 at left, followed by work by Jeanne Mammen
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Jeanne Mammen (German, 1890-1976)
Bar (installation view)
c. 1930
Ömer Koç Collection
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Jeanne Mammen (German, 1890-1976)
Bierseidelbetrachtung I (The Contemplative Drinkers I) (installation views)
c. 1929
Watercolour and pencil on paper
Ömer Koç Collection
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Jeanne Mammen (German, 1890-1976)
Untitled (Vor dem Auftritt) (Before the Performance) (installation views)
c. 1928
Jeanne Mammen Foundation at Stadtmuseum Berlin
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Jeanne Mammen (German, 1890-1976)
Café Nollendorf (installation view)
c. 1931
Watercolour and India ink over pencil
Private collection
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Jeanne Mammen’s paintings and drawings of Berlin nightlife document the changing role of women and offer rare images of queer female desire. In contrast to the bitingly satirical images characteristic of George Grosz and Max Beckmann, Mammen sympathetically portrays her mostly female figures. Café Nollendorf is one of several by Mammen published in Curt Moreck’s subversive 1931 Guide to ‘Depraved’ Berlin (shown nearby). It illustrates his account of a lesbian club for ‘open-minded’ clientele. Mammen was also a successful commercial artist, recording modern fashions and mores in popular magazines.

Wall text

Otto Dix (German, 1891-1969)
Anita Berber (installation view)
1925
Pastel on paper
Private collection
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Otto Dix met the 26-year-old cabaret dancer and silent film star Anita Berber in Dūsseldorf in 1925. Berber was among the most provocative performers of her time, appearing at major Berlin venues like the Wintergarten and the Apollo, as well as the political cabaret Schall und Rauch and the lesbian club Topkeller. In her notorious dance ‘Cocaine’, accompanied by Camille Saint-Saëns’ Valse mignonne (1896), Berber played a sex worker and addict, wearing a leather corset with her breast exposed. Simulating trembles of pain, she dances spasms of hallucination before collapsing on the floor. Despite her theatrical makeup, Dix’s portrait offers a more intimate side of Berber.

Wall text

Installation view of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery, London showing on the left, the work of Dodo Burgner and on the right, the work of George Grosz.
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Dodo (Dodo Burgner, German, 1927-1933)
Revue neger (Josephine Baker) (installation view)
c. 1926
Gouache over pencil on cardboard
Collection Krümmer, Hamburg
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Dodo (Dodo Burgner, German, 1927-1933)
The Fortune Teller, published in ULK (installation views)
February 1929
Gouache over pencil on cardboard
Collection Krümmer, Hamburg
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

George Grosz (German, 1893-1959)
Schönheit, dich will ich preisen (Beauty, Thee Will I Praise) (installation views)
1923
Offset lithograph
Publisher: Malik-Verlag, Berlin
Printer: Kunstanstalt Dr. Selle & Co. A.G. Berlin
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Installation views of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery, London
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery, London showing at left, Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler’s Ausblick im Nachtlokal (View of a Nightclub) 1930
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler (German, 1899-1940)
Ausblick im Nachtlokal (View of a Nightclub) (installation view)
1930
Pastel on paper
Private collection, Berlin
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler Ausblick im Nachtlokal (View of a Nightclub) wall text
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler (German, 1899-1940)
Ausblick im Nachtlokal (View of a Nightclub)
1930
Private collection, Berlin

Installation view of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery, London showing at left, showing at left, Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler’s Lissy (1931) and at right, Karl Hofer’s Tiller Girls (before 1927)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Elfriede Lohse-Wächtler (German, 1899-1940)
Lissy (installation views)
1931
Watercolour and pencil on paper
Private collection. Courtesy Städel Museum, Frankfurt
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery, London showing at left, Karl Hofer’s Tiller Girls
(before 1927)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Karl Hofer (German, 1878-1955)
Tiller Girls (installation view)
before 1927
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Karl Hofer (German, 1878-1955)
Tiller Girls
before 1927
Kunsthalle Emden – Stiftung Henri und Eske Nannen
© Elke Walford, Fotowerkstatt Hamburg

Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art
Installation view Barbican Art Gallery 4 October 2019 – 19 January 2020
© Tristan Fewings / Getty Images

Installation view of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery, London with Erna Schmidt-Caroll’s
Chansonette (Singer) third from left
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Erna Schmidt-Caroll (German, 1896-1964)
Chansonette (Singer) (installation views)
c. 1928
Private collection
© Estate Erna Schmidt-Caroll
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Erna Schmidt-Caroll (German, 1896-1964)
Chansonette (Singer)
c. 1928
Private collection
© Estate Erna Schmidt-Caroll

Installation view of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery, London showing the work of George Grosz and Max Beckmann

George Grosz (German, 1893-1959)
Menschen in Cáfe (People in a Cáfe) (installation view)
1917
Black ink and pen on paper
On loan from the Trustees of the British Museum
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Max Beckmann (German, 1884-1950)
Nackttanz (Striptease), from Berliner Reise (Trip to Berlin) (installation view)
1922
Lithograph, one from a portfolio of eleven (including cover)
Publisher: J.B. Neumann, Berlin
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Jeanne Mammen (German, 1890-1976)
Sie reprasentiert! (She Represents!), published in Simplicissimus vol. 32, no 47, February 1928
Printed magazine
Jeanne Mammen Foundation at Stadtmuseum Berlin
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Jeanne Mammen (German, 1890-1976)
Maskenball (Masked Ball), published in Jugend vol. 34, no 5, January 1929
Printed magazine
Jeanne Mammen Foundation at Stadtmuseum Berlin
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Jeanne Mammen (German, 1890-1976)
Fasting (Carnival), published in Simplicissimus vol. 34, no 46, February 1930
Printed magazine
Jeanne Mammen Foundation at Stadtmuseum Berlin
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Unknown photographer
‘Slide on the Razor’, performance as part of the Haller Revue ‘Under and Over’, Berlin, 1923
Courtesy Feral House

Ibadan & Osogbo Mbari Clubs 1961-66 wall text
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery, London showing at left, Twins Seven-Seven Devil’s Dog (1964) and at right, Twins Seven-Seven THE BEAUTIFUL LADY and THE FULLBODIED GENTLEMAN THAT REDUCED TO HEAD (1967)
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Twins Seven-Seven
Devil’s Dog (installation view detail)
1964
Ink, gouache and varnish on paper
Iwalewahaus, Universitat Bayreuth
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Twins Seven-Seven
THE BEAUTIFUL LADY and THE FULLBODIED GENTLEMAN THAT REDUCED TO HEAD (installation views)
1967
Gouache on paper
Iwalewahaus, Universitat Bayreuth
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery, London with at left, Muraina Oyelami’s Burial Ground (1967) with Georgina Beier’s Gelede (1966) third from right
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Muraina Oyelami (Nigerian, born 1940)
Burial Ground (installation views)
1967
Oil on board
Collection of M.K. Wolford
Photos: Marcus Bunyan

Georgina Beier (British, b. 1938)
Gelede (installation view)
1966
Woodcut
Iwalewahaus, Universitat Bayreuth
Photo: Marcus Bunyan

Installation view of the exhibition Into the Night: Cabarets and Clubs in Modern Art at the Barbican Art Gallery, London with at second left, Valente Malangatana Ngwenya’s Untitled (1961)