525 - Willi Baumeister (Stuttgart 1889 - 1955 Stuttgart)

Willi Baumeister (Stuttgart 1889 - 1955 Stuttgart) Grotesque I, 1946 lithography/paper 26,7 x 34,6 cm signed Baumeister, numbered 29/50 SCHÄTZPREIS / ESTIMATE € 400 - 600 STARTPREIS / STARTING PRICE € 400 Friedrich Wilhelm "Willi" Baumeister was born on January 22, 1889, in Stuttgart. From 1905 to 1907, he trained as a decorative painter while simultaneously attending the Royal Württemberg Academy of Fine Arts in Stuttgart. Starting in 1909, he studied in the composition class of Adolf Hölzel; Hölzel’s teachings on color, the picture plane, and pictorial structure proved pivotal to Baumeister’s artistic development. Within the circle of the Hölzel School, he early on encountered Oskar Schlemmer, Johannes Itten, Ida Kerkovius, Hermann Stenner, and Max Ackermann. These artists shared an interest in a style of painting—based on color, form, and pictorial rhythm—that was increasingly independent of representational subject matter. After World War I, Baumeister co-founded the Stuttgart-based "Üecht" group and became a member of the Berlin "Novembergruppe." At the same time, he worked as a typographer and stage designer; he created his first stage set for the Deutsches Theater Stuttgart as early as 1919. During the 1920s, he developed a distinctive visual language characterized by both constructivist and dynamic qualities. Series such as the Wall Paintings (Mauerbilder), Machine Paintings (Maschinenbilder), Sports Paintings (Sportbilder), and Figure Paintings (Figurenbilder) combine flat compositions, geometric order, and typography with imagery reflecting modern industrial society. Through their reduction to elemental forms and pictorial structures, these works align with the broader context of European Modernism—paralleling, for instance, the abstract principles of order found in Piet Mondrian’s work and the poetic, sign-like visual language of Paul Klee. In 1928, Baumeister was appointed professor at the Municipal School of Arts and Crafts in Frankfurt am Main. Following his dismissal by the National Socialists in 1933, he returned to live and work in Stuttgart, while also spending time in Wuppertal, where he was employed by a lacquer factory. Despite a ban on painting and exhibiting imposed in 1941, he continued his work in secret. During these years, he created works such as the Ideograms, Eidos images, and the Gilgamesh and Montaru series, in which his interest in signs, myth, primordial forms, and a timeless visual language coalesced. The organic, abstract forms of his later work can also be linked to Hans Arp, whose biomorphic shapes and poetic approach to abstraction represent a key reference point for the European avant-garde. In 1946, Baumeister returned to the reopened Stuttgart Academy as a professor of painting. With his seminal 1947 text Das Unbekannte in der Kunst (The Unknown in Art), he became an influential theorist of modern and abstract art. International exhibitions and connections ensured his work became known beyond Germany at an early stage. Willi Baumeister died on August 31, 1955, while working in his Stuttgart studio. PLEASE NOTE: The purchase price consists of the highest bid plus the buyer's premium, sales tax and, if applicable, the fee of artists resale rights and platform fee. In the case of normal taxation (marked ° at the estimate), a premium of 24% is added to the highest bid. The mandatory sales tax is added to the sum of the highest bid, the buyer's premium and platform fee. This amounts to 13% for paintings, drawings, graphic works and sculptures and 20% for photographs and all other items. The buyer's premium amounts to 28% in case of differential taxation. The sales tax is included in the differential taxation.