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Johannes Itten (Swiss, 1888-1967)
Haus des Weissen Mannes (House of the White Man): Gruss und Heil den Herzen welche von dem Licht der Liebe erleuchtet und weder durch Hoffnungen auf einen Himmel noch durch Furcht vor einer Hölle irregeleitet werden O.Z. HANISH (Greeting and salutation to hearts which live illuminated by the light of love and are not led astray either by hopes of a heaven or by fear of a hell O.A. HANISH)
Five-color lithograph, from Neue Europäische Graphik Erste Mappe…(New European Graphics First Portfolio), autumn, 1921
Miriam and Ira D.Wallach Fund

Painter, textile designer, art educator and theorist, Johannes Itten was an influential teacher at the Bauhaus during its early years in Weimar (1919-1922). While Itten championed a romantic ideal of the Bauhaus as a contemplative arts-and-crafts utopia, Haus des Weissen Mannes, his contribution to the first Bauhaus portfolio, reflects his assimilation of avant-garde movements: Cubism and Expressionism, the art and aesthetics of the Der Blaue Reiter, and his own experiments with abstract collage incorporating torn paper and cloth, akin to word collages in periodicals and broadsides by artists in the Dada circle. Other artists, who participated in the Bauhaus portfolios included Lyonel Feininger, Paul Klee, Lothar Schreyer, August Macke, Franz Marc, Heinrich Campendonk, George Grosz, Otto Gleichmann, and Wassily Kandinsky. Printmaking was an important part of the Bauhaus curriculum, for it brought together hand craftsmanship with technology, but ultimately it was the emphasis on technology, industry and socially committed design, away from craft and individualistic creativity, which led Itten to break with the school.

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