Herbert Bayer

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Herbert Bayer
Born (1900-04-05)April 5, 1900
Haag, Austria
Died 30 September 1985(1985-09-30) (aged 85)
Montecito, California, USA.
Nationality Austrian, American
Training Weimar Bauhaus
File:ABayer.png
Herbert Bayer's 1925 experimental universal typeface combined upper and lowercase characters into a single character set.

Herbert Bayer (April 5, 1900 – September 30, 1985) was an Austrian American graphic designer, painter, photographer, sculptor, art director, environmental & interior designer, and architect, who was widely recognized as the last living member of the Bauhaus and was instrumental in the development of the Atlantic Richfield Company's corporate art collection until his death in 1985.

Training and Bauhaus Years

Bayer apprenticed under the artist Georg Schmidthammer in Linz. Leaving the workshop to study at the Darmstadt Artists' Colony, he became interested in Walter Gropius's Bauhaus manifesto. After Bayer had studied for four years at the Bauhaus[1] under such teachers as Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee[2] and László Moholy-Nagy, Gropius appointed Bayer director of printing and advertising.

In the spirit of reductive minimalism, Bayer developed a crisp visual style and adopted use of all-lowercase, sans serif typefaces for most Bauhaus publications. Bayer is one of several typographers of the period including Kurt Schwitters and Jan Tschichold who experimented with the creation of a simplified more phonetic-based alphabet. From 1925 to 1930 Bayer designed a geometric sans-serif Proposal for a Universal Typeface[1] that existed only as a design and was never actually cast into real type. These designs are now issued in digital form as Bayer Universal.[2] The design also inspired ITC Bauhaus and Architype Bayer, which bears comparison with the stylistically related typeface Architype Schwitters.

Post-Bauhaus Years in Germany

In 1928, Bayer left the Bauhaus to become art director of Vogue magazine's Berlin office.[1] He remained in Germany far later than most other progressives. In 1936 he designed a brochure for the Deutschland Ausstellung, an exhibition for tourists in Berlin during the 1936 Olympic Games - the brochure celebrated life in the Third Reich, and the authority of Hitler. However, in 1937, works of Bayer's were included in the Nazi propaganda exhibition "Degenerate Art", upon which he left Germany. Upon fleeing Germany, he traveled in Italy.[2]

Exile in the United States

In 1938 settled in New York City where he had a long and distinguished career in nearly every aspect of the graphic arts.

In 1944 Bayer married Joella Syrara Haweis, the daughter of poet Mina Loy. The same year, he became a U.S. citizen. [3]

In 1946 the Bayers relocated. Hired by industrialist and visionary Walter Paepcke, Bayer moved to Aspen, Colorado as Paepcke promoted skiing as a popular sport. Bayer's architectural work in the town included co-designing the Aspen Institute and restoring the Wheeler Opera House, but his production of promotional posters identified skiing with wit, excitement, and glamour.

In 1959, he designed his "fonetik alfabet", a phonetic alphabet, for English. It was sans-serif and without capital letters. He had special symbols for the endings -ed, -ory, -ing, and -ion, as well as the digraphs "ch", "sh", and "ng". An underline indicated the doubling of a consonant in traditional orthography.

While living in Aspen, Bayer had a chance meeting with the eccentric oilman, outdoorsman and (to those who knew him) visionary ecologist, Robert O. Anderson. When Anderson saw the ultra-modern, Bauhaus-inspired home that Bayer had designed & built in Aspen, he walked up to the front door and introduced himself. It was the beginning of a life-long friendship between the two men and instigated Anderson's insatiable passion for compulsively collecting contemporary art.

With Anderson's eventual formation of the Atlantic Richfield Company, and as his personal art collection quickly overflowed out of his New Mexico ranch and other homes, ARCO soon held the unique distinction of possessing the world's largest corporate Art Collection, under the critical eye and sharp direction of Bayer as Arco's Design Consultant.

Overseeing acquisitions from within Arco Plaza, the newly-built twin 51 story office towers in Los Angeles, Bayer was also responsible for the Arco logo and designing all corporate "branding" related to the company. Prior to the completion of Arco Plaza, Anderson commissioned Bayer to design a monumental sculpture-fountain to be installed between the dark green granite towers. Double Ascension still stands between the twin skyscrapers to this day.

Under Bayer's and Corporate Art Curator Leila Mehle's direction & supervision, Arco's Collection grew to nearly 30,000 Artworks nationwide. Arco's collection was quite eclectic, and consisted of an extremely wide range of media & styles; ranging from large resin sculptures by Dewain Valentine to original signed photographs by Ansel Adams. The vast majority of the collection consisted of original "signed" prints & "artist's proofs" of hand-pulled prints. Major works were reserved for lobbies, reception areas and executive & upper management offices.

Bayer and Mehle instigated a unique program for the collection in that large paintings and sculptures were often "circulated" within the company and transported from one Arco building to another, often making the journey from LA to New York and back again.

With the purchase of Anaconda Copper, Arco built an office tower in downtown Denver, and again, Anderson commissioned Bayer to oversee Anaconda's Art Collection for the new company. Eventually, Bayer gave the Denver Art Museum a collection of around 8,000 of his works. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1979.[4]

Legacy and Influence

Bayer's works appear in prominent public and private collections including the MIT List Visual Arts Center.

Bayer designed Earthworks an environmental sculpture located in Kent, Washington. http://www.ci.kent.wa.us/arts/earthworks/

Fonts Designed by Herbert Bayer

  • Proposal for a Universal Type (1925-1930), this face existed only as designs.
  • Bayer Type (Berthold Type Foundry, 1925-1930)

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Oral history interview with Herbert Bayer, 1981 Oct. 3". Oral History interview. Archives of American Art. 2011. http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-herbert-bayer-11924. Retrieved 30 Jun 2011.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Oral history interview with Herbert Bayer, 1981 Nov. 3-1982 Mar. 10". Oral History interview. Archives of American Art. 2011. http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/interviews/oral-history-interview-herbert-bayer-11815. Retrieved 30 Jun 2011.
  3. ↑ "Herbert Bayer". Index to Petitions for Naturalization filed in New York City, 1792-1989. Ancestry.com. http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?ti=0&indiv=try&db=nysoundexpet&h=2554546. Retrieved May 28, 2011.(subscription required)
  4. ↑ "Book of Members, 1780-2010: Chapter B". American Academy of Arts and Sciences. http://www.amacad.org/publications/BookofMembers/ChapterB.pdf. Retrieved May 28, 2011.
  • Cohen, Arthur Allen. Herbert Bayer: The Complete Work. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1984
  • Chanzit, Gwen. From Bauhaus to Aspen: Herbert Bayer and Modernist Design in America. Denver, CO: Johnson Press and Denver Art Museum, 2005 (originally published as Herbert Bayer and Modernist Design in America. Ann Arbor, MI: UMI Research Press, 1987)
  • Macmillsn, Niel, An A-Z of Type Designers, Yale University Press, 2006.

External links


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