Edition Bauhaus 53
Ludwig Grote and the Bauhaus Idea
It is still little known that Ludwig Grote (1893–1974) was one of the most important supporters of the Bauhaus during the Weimar Republic and one of its most influential propagandists in the Federal Republic of Germany. This book is the first dedicated to this art historian, curator, and cultural politician whose activities and views had a considerable influence on the evolution and perception of the school. Crucially involved in its move to Dessau and in the dismissal of its second director, Hannes Meyer, Grote failed in his attempt to preserve the Bauhaus Dessau as a “German Bauhaus” with the help of influential National Socialists. After World War II, he functioned as the first contact address and gathering point for former members of the Bauhaus who had remained in Germany and their works. With his lectures and publications and above all with important exhibitions, he had a lasting influence on the West German reception of the Bauhaus as a design school with a grounding in art. These efforts culminated in the show 50 jahre bauhaus (50 years bauhaus), which opened in Stuttgart in 1968 and which on its subsequent fourteen-year world tour continued to convey Grote’s picture of the Bauhaus even after his death.
Edited for the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation
by Peter Bernhard and Torsten BlumeText by Peter Bernhard, Susanne Neubauer, Nadine Willing-Stritzke, Christian Eger, Elisabeth Kremer, Birgit Jooss and Torsten Blume
Graphic design:
Hannes Drißner based on a concept by Katharina KöhlerLayout:
188 pages, 90 colour illustrations, softcoverLanguages:
English and GermanSpector Books, Leipzig
2021ISBN 978-3-95905-280-1 (en)
ISBN 978-3-95905-279-5 (de)€ 28 in book trade and
€ 24 at the Designshop Bauhaus Dessau
The publication is funded by the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung
