Donation from GLS Treuhand: Bauhaus Dessau receives works by Eugen Batz

The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation has received a generous donation of five paintings, around 300 graphics (including over 100 etchings), 19 photographs and important books by the Bauhaus artist Eugen Batz from the non-profit organisation GLS Treuhand from Bochum. The works were all created between 1950 and and 1985. Future exhibitions and research can now fall back on a more complete collection by the Bauhaus student. The works by Batz transferred to GLS Treuhand in his will come from the estate of his son-in-law Dieter Erich Schmidt.

After studying at the Kunstgewerbeschule in Elberfeld, Eugen Batz (1905-1986) came to the Bauhaus Dessau in 1927, where he studied until 1931 with Josef Albers, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky and Joost Schmidt, among others. Most formative for him, also for his later work, was his attendance at the painting class of Paul Klee, whom he followed to the Düsseldorf Art Academy as a master student in 1931. At the end of the 1940s, Eugen Batz was a co-founder of the Rhenish Secession, and as a successful painter of the Informel movement he took part in the documenta in Kassel in 1959. 

The Bauhaus Dessau Foundation has presented the few works by Batz from its holdings (from 1930-1932) several times in exhibitions – most prominently in the 2013 exhibition in Remscheid and the 2014 exhibition in Dessau-Roßlau, Bauhaus. The Art of the Students. 

At present, the donation is being researched.

About GLS Treuhand e.V. 

GLS Treuhand promotes charitable projects for an active, democratic and open civil society with ideas and money. With its foundations it supports social, ecological and cultural fields of learning and development. In addition, it manages and advises dependent and independent foundations. According to its own information, it supported around 900 projects with 18 million euros in 2019 through donations, gifts and legacies with its numerous partners.