Not the Bauhaus: The Breslau Academy of Art and Applied Arts

Not the Bauhaus: The Breslau Academy of Art and Applied Arts

Abstract

Once at the pinnacle of progressive art education, the Breslau Academy of Art and

Applied Art, has been largely forgotten. The Academy deserves attention, however,

because it was a paradigm for art school reform in a time when Germany was rife with

experiments in arts education. Different from its more famous contemporary, the

Bauhaus, the Breslau Academy is a study in another aspect of the avant-garde; and its

history helps complete our picture of the complexities of progressive art and architecture

education during the 1920s.

Beside the Bauhaus: The Breslau Academy of Art and Applied Arts

‘‘The [Breslau] academy, once the petrified embodiment of all that was mediocre in popular taste, is now the avant-garde of art, and often in conflict with the same public to whose wishes it once pandered….’’ Adolf Behne1

‘‘And so one says of this Academy that it is the liveliest in Germany,’’ Adolf Rothenberg2

Once deemed the foremost arts academy in Germany, the Breslau Academy of Art and

Applied Art, has been eclipsed by its more famous contemporary, the Bauhaus. Writing

in 1983 Hartmut Frank asked the question ‘‘Was the Breslau Academy a Bauhaus before

the Bauhaus?’’3 Frank posed the question because Breslau instituted workshop-based arts

education and combined fine and applied arts curricula long before the Bauhaus, already

at the turn of the 20th century. Frank rightly concluded that the answer to this question

was ‘‘no’’ but Breslau is significant for other reasons. It was never another example of

Bauhaus-style arts education but a different model, representative of an alternative

progressive point-of-view, in a time when there were quite a few experimental

approaches to arts education in Germany.4 Whereas the Bauhaus eventually moved to

emphasize the marriage of art and technology in the service of creating useful form,

Breslau rejected this approach. Instead, the Academy helped develop a model still

current today of pluralistic, non-ideological arts education whose goal was to develop

individual creative expression. If the Bauhaus focused on the technological aspect of

modernity and its promise, Breslau concentrated on another. The Breslau model stressed

the challenge to authority and accepted modes of expression of all kinds, historic and

contemporary.

Workshop-based instruction was common to most reformed arts institutions after 1918;

uniting fine and applied arts had long been a goal of reform-minded educators and

bureaucrats hoping to improve Germany’s industrial production. What distinguished

Breslau were not originality but quality and pedagogical approach. Rather than invent a

new type of art school, Breslau slowly reconstituted the old model in a more effective,

modern, and progressive fashion. The school remained committed to the fine and applied

arts as separate but related fields of study and upheld the old-fashioned notion of art as an

endeavor focused on the creation of unique, beautiful objects. Technology and machine

production were never ends but means to be used when appropriate. History was not

repudiated but studied. Although faculty believed in the search for new forms related to

the Zeitgeist they believed that new forms had to be rooted in a historic continuum. The

Academy was conceived as a place to support local and regional fine arts and industry.

As such, it provided an impetus to both the Breslau and Silesian modern arts and

architecture scenes. But most importantly, Breslau pedagogy focused on developing the

unique creative vision of each student. Breslau was a model for pluralistic arts education

where studio instruction is based on the individual interests of each instructor rather than

a general area of study. Thus, it is as important an antecedent for contemporary arts

education as the Bauhaus since most art and architecture schools today are organized in

just this way. The history of the Breslau Academy offers a compelling picture of the

fault lines of the German avant-garde and progressive arts education during the 1920s as

Germany wrestled to come to grips with modernization.

Attitudes toward modernization, industrialization and new technology were varied during

the early years of the twentieth century. Germany’s rapid industrialization had produced

a backlash among members of the Mittelstand, the small producers who made up the old

middle class, who saw their traditional way of life disappearing as more and more

Germans entered the middle classes as white-collar clerks, secretaries, and office

workers. Among the arts avant-garde, rapid industrialization produced varied reactions,

one group enthusiastically espoused new technologies and industrial production but

another group was far more cautious treading a middle ground between the extreme

positions of pro- and anti-. It was the skeptical group that dominated the Breslau

Academy beginning with Hans Poelzig’s directorship (1903-1916) and continuing under

August Endell (1918-1925) and Oskar Moll (1925-1933). Whereas the Bauhaus initially

used the workshops as the place to fuse fine art and crafts practice based on Gropius’

understanding of the medieval workshop; Breslau used the workshops primarily to test

design schemes. Breslau hired expert machinists to help students execute their designs

intentionally distancing students from the craftsmanship; hands-on experience was never

meant to lead to hands-on practice. Rather, it was a way of becoming familiar with the

materials and methods of making so that design could improve.5 By 1922 the Bauhaus

was moving towards teaching of type-forms (or standardization) for industrial

manufacture as the mode of artistic production; Breslau rejected this approach.6 In

Breslau the students were taught that all design was art; objects were conceived

independently of the question of production and thought of as unique handcrafted

artifacts. Most importantly, Breslau stressed the development of each student’s unique

artistic vision. Curricular developments focused on strengthening the faculty profile in

order to offer students the broadest range of artistic points-of-view possible. Workshops

served this larger goal; they were added to support the students’ creative explorations.

The difference between the Bauhaus and Breslau, therefore, lay in the emphasis placed

on creating useful objects versus imaginative form. In Breslau, the way to individual

expression and imaginative form was primary.7

The two poles represented by the schools mirrored the two camps whose opposing views

came to a head in the infamous Muthesius Affair at the 1914 Cologne Werkbund

Exhibition when Hermann Muthesius argued that the Werkbund should support the

creation of type-form by artists to supplant beautifully conceived unique objects. Henry

van de Velde vehemently rejected Muthesius’s ideas on the grounds that they threatened

individual creativity.8 Supporting Van de Velde were August Endell, Hermann Obrist,

Bernhard Pankok, Peter Behrens, Karl Ernst Osthaus, Bruno Taut, Gropius, and Poelzig.

Although Gopius was in Van de Velde's camp in 1914, by 1916 he was circulating a

proposal to use integrated fine art and crafts education in an advisory capacity to German

industry. His 1916 proposal was not as developed as the 1922-23 programs for the

Bauhaus but it was a tentative step in that direction.9 The division between Muthesius's

view and Van de Velde's was between those who saw the fine artist as the obsolete

practitioner of 'art for arts sake,' a relic of bygone times, and those who believed in the

artist's lasting importance to culture. Whereas the Bauhaus eventually articulated a vision

for design for industry as the ultimate goal of arts education, Breslau never did. Instead,

the school strengthened the academy system by hiring an internationally known roster of

artists and architects who espoused the many different positions of the contemporary

avant-garde and who believed in the importance of individual creativity.10

Between 1900 and 1933 the Breslau faculty reads like a who’s who of the German avant-

garde: Endell, Adolf Rading, Heinrich Lauterbach, Hans Scharoun, Theodor von Gosen,

Max Wislicenus, Otto Mueller, Oskar Moll, Alexander Kanoldt, Georg Muche, Johannes

Molzahn, and Oskar Schlemmer, to name a few. Scharoun described the artistic positions

of these personalities best, ‘‘There was Otto Mueller, of the Vegetative, and Kanoldt, who

worked with the Objective. Oskar Schlemmer busied himself with the richness of the

Interval and Muche with Lyric Structure. Mense showed the Expressive, Paul Holz

strength and assertiveness of the Primeval, Kardorff the Representative and Typical.

Molzahn gave meaning to the coherence of the Heroic, Dobers the intimate side of

character. Oskar Moll worked with the congruences of color. As sculptor, Bednorz

structured the everyday and Gosen the special and monumental. Similarly, the architects

demonstrated their individuality.’’11 The two schools developed in parallel after 1918

when both first achieved wider notoriety, until 1933 when both were closed, the Bauhaus

because of rightwing hostility and the Academy because of Heinrich Brüning’s

Emergency Decree of 1932. The decree closed three Prussian arts academies in Breslau,

Kassel, and Königsberg as part of the German government’s attempt to apply stringent

fiscal controls to a faltering economy after the 1929 disaster.

Although the Breslau Academy could boast a roster of internationally known artists and

architects as impressive as those at the Bauhaus with whom it shared some faculty why

has the school been forgotten? There are several plausible explanations. During the

Weimar era Breslau was considered a provincial city on the fringes of the country.

Unlike Munich and Dresden, it did not have a distinguished history of art patronage. In

fact, as late as 1900 no one would have predicted the Breslau Academy would rise to the

stature it eventually achieved because the Academy had been undistinguished since its

founding and the city had only a nascent contemporary arts scene.12 Furthermore, the

Bauhaus had already achieved quasi-mythic status by the mid-1920s whereas Breslau

was just attaining international repute when it was forced to close its doors in 1932-33.

Then the city of Breslau was ceded to Poland after 1945. By itself this might not have

resulted in 60 years of silence but the inaccessibility of city held archives during the

Communist era certainly contributed to the lack of scholarship on the Academy.

Scholarship has begun to appear since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 although it is

almost exclusively in German and Polish.13 Finally, although some literature has

appeared since 1945, there is nothing like the quantity of publications that exist on the

Bauhaus. Most importantly, no one undertook a posthumous publicity campaign on a

scale similar to Gropius’ efforts on behalf of the Bauhaus.14

Breslau Before 1918

King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia founded the Breslau provincial art school in 1791,

along with four other provincial arts and crafts schools, as part of an effort to broaden

access to arts education in Prussia and specifically to improve the quality of work in

cities with substantial manufacturing capacity.15 Thus, the Breslau school served a dual

mission from its start: to train fine artists and to train designers for industry. Given the

history of applied arts education in Europe, the Prussian decree of 1790 was

extraordinarily forward thinking. Applied arts education reform did not receive wide

attention until well into the 19th century. In 1816 the school was renamed the Art,

Building and Handworkers School then renamed again 60 years later, the Royal Art and

Applied Arts School and finally, the State Academy for Art and Applied Arts in 1911.

The succession of names reflects changing attitudes towards art and crafts education in

Germany as the country industrialized and sought to compete favorably on international

markets.16

German interest in modern art and design was intimately tied to the belief in German

cultural superiority, on the one hand, and to the growing sense after 1871 that cultural

renewal was a necessary bi-product of unification. Starting as a reform movement

simultaneously affecting arts pedagogy and arts production, the calls for reform

broadened to encompass economic and political agencies and the abstract notion of

German culture as a whole. Amongst artists and architects, change began as fatigue with

historical art forms and an entrenched academicism that seemed bereft of contemporary

significance. Artists and architects hoped to discover means of expression that reflected

the Zeitgeist, in the same way that Classicism and the Gothic seemed to reflect the spirit

of the times in which they were invented. Already by the 1890s much of the terminology

later associated with Modernism was in use. Essays by Adolf Loos, Alfred Lichtwark,

Gottfried Semper, Cornelius Gurlitts, Richard Streiter and others called for a more

‘sachlich’ approach to product design as well as for more appealing aesthetics in the

objects.17 Semper had advocated reform in his famous essay, ‘‘Economics, Industry and

Art,’’ penned after visiting the 1851 Exhibition in London. Among other things, Semper

differentiated between a blind wholesale embrace of, and a reasonable use of, machines

and technology. Semper also called for the combination of education in fine and

decorative arts in a workshop setting.18 By the 1890s Semper was joined by journalists

such as Julius Meier-Graefe and Ferdinand Avernarius; bureaucrats such as Ludwig

Pallat at the Prussian Ministry of Culture; and museum directors like Peter Jessen of the

Arts and Crafts Museum in Berlin; and art patrons like Harry Graf Kessler. Common to

most of the reformers was the belief in art as the path to German cultural revitalization

and the desire to shape public taste in the arts and applied arts through the modernization

of German arts production. "Art, because it is the expression of the creative powers in

man, must be made the center-piece of all education," wrote Hamburg museum director

Alfred Lichtwark.19

Motivations for reform were varied. Many wished to improve the quality of product

design in order to make German industrial products more competitive on international

markets after disastrous showings in several World Expositions during the 19th century.20

German products were of noticeably inferior quality when compared to those of the

English and French. German manufactured goods were derided for their, "technical

backwardness, aesthetic inferiority, and economic worthlessness."21 The control over

applied arts schools with a view to improving education and thereby manufacturing

performance. The Commerce Ministry therefore sent Hermann Muthesius to England

between 1896 and 1903 to observe and send back reports on English manufacturing

techniques because England was at the forefront of industrial production at the time.

When he returned to Germany, Muthesius continued to work at the Ministry of

Commerce agitating for reform in the handicrafts and applied arts education systems.

Interestingly, Muthesius soon developed a point-of-view different from that of Ruskin,

Pugin, and Morris. He did not advocate a return to traditional handicraft but a new model

in which craft would serve industry. Muthesius’s efforts put him in conflict with Hans

Poelzig and others at the Breslau Academy early on because one of the reforms

Muthesius favored was combining the Academies and the Trade Schools in order to

create what he believed would be a more effective education system for future employees

of German industry. In Breslau this would have meant closing either the Municipal

School for Handwork or the Academy. The conflict raged until 1933 when the Academy

shut its doors.22

The split in authority between the Prussian Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of

Culture complicated reform efforts. The two ministries were in open tension. The

'administrative dualism' remarked on by Wilhelm Waetzoldt was reflected in the very

different approaches of schools under the Commerce Ministry's jurisdiction and those

under that of the Culture Ministry. The Ministry of Culture emphasized the aesthetic

component of art, manifest in good design; the Ministry of Commerce valued the

economic viability of a commercial product. After 1884, the Ministry of Culture

administered only two art programs, the Breslau Art Academy and Royal School of

Applied Arts in Berlin while the Ministry of Commerce controlled all the other 34

schools of arts, crafts and trade in Prussia including the Breslau Municipal Hand-worker

School.

Certain developments after 1871 contributed to the rising interest in modern art and

architecture in Breslau. Firstly, the economic expansion after 1871 doubled the ranks of

the middle classes. As disposable income grew so too did the number of arts

organizations. Only the Art Association (1833) and the Association for the History of the

Fine Arts in Breslau (1862) were founded before 1870.23 The first commercial art gallery,

the Theodor Lichtenberg Gallery, opened in 1868, the Museum of Fine Arts and Bruno

Richter Gallery followed in 1879/80, the Applied Arts Museum in 1899. The Silesian

Artists Alliance (1907) joined artists and architects devoted to mounting contemporary

art exhibitions in Breslau.24 Its work brought national and international figures to Breslau

and created an exhibition forum for Breslau and Silesian artists. A typical exhibition

from 1920 featured such figures as Lovis Corinth, Max Liebermann, and Oskar

Kokoschka alongside lesser-known local artists like Paula Grünefeld.25 Moreover, the

Kunstlerbund was instrumental in bringing the latest art to Breslau like work by Erich

Heckel, Kirchner, Schmidt-Rottluff, and Hans Purrmann. The Silesian Alliance for

Protection of the Homeland incorporated in 1908 to protect the cultural heritage of Silesia

which they defined as historic monuments, nature, and new art and architecture.26 The

Society of Friends of Art was established around 1908 to help support the acquisition and

exhibition efforts of the Museum for Fine Arts.27 The Applied Arts Association began its

work in 1906; its ‘‘purpose was through the mounting of exhibitions of handicraft work

from the Heimat or from outsiders in Breslau or the Province to support the Museum of

Applied Arts.’’28 The Gallery Franz Hancke, long a supporter of the Wiener Secession,

established a Breslau gallery in 1908 while the Dresden Gallery Arnold arrived in 1913.

In 1908, the progressive Max Berg was appointed city architect; Richard Konwiarz,

Albert Kempter, and Paul Heim soon followed. Ernst May accepted his post at the

Silesian Homesteads in 1919 thereby beginning a series of little-known experimental

housing development in and around Breslau.29

A coterie of artists and architects from the Academy were active, often leading, members

of the various arts associations. Von Gosen chaired the Künstlerbund from 1908 to 1930

then Kanoldt assumed the directorship. Members from the Academy in 1928 included

Scharoun, Rading, Karl Hanusch, Holz, Kanoldt, Von Kardorff, Mense, Moll, Marg

Moll, Mueller, and Hans Zimbal.30 The Künstlerbund was so intimately tied to the

Academy that Von Gosen dubbed it the ‘‘child of the Academy.’’31 Moll was also on the

Boards of the Society of Friends of Art, the Applied Arts Association, and the Silesian

Alliance for Protection of the Homeland; Rading, Von Gosen, and Academy graduate

Theo Effenberger were on the Board of the Alliance.32 Furthermore, Academy faculty

served on local and regional architecture competitions, the Museum of Fine Arts Board,

and in advisory capacities to the city on cultural matters. Thus, although Breslau often

resisted new art the faculty was instrumental in bringing it to the city and in helping

develop local taste.33

The circle of devoted art patrons grew after 1900 although it remained small for a city

Breslau’s size (about 500,000 residents). In 1929 there were only 173 members inscribed

in the Kunstlerbund, 87 of them artists.34 Breslau collectors counted amongst their

numbers the industrialist Max Silberberg who had the largest private collection of

impressionist art in Germany in the 1920s; the businessman Carl Sachs, who had a

distinguished collection of twentieth century art from all over Europe; and the lawyer

Ismar Littmann who had an enormous collection of over 5,000 pieces of German

contemporary work.35 All the major Breslau collectors frequently lent their work to

museums and galleries in other German cities helping raise Breslau’s profile as a center

for contemporary art.36 It is important to note that with the exception of Sachs, the other

important Breslau collectors only began to purchase art after 1918 parallel to the rise of

the Academy.37

Most historians and local observers credit the meteoric rise of the State Academy for Art

and Applied Art as the primary catalyst for the progressive art scene in Breslau because

the Academy brought talented and energetic young artists and architects to the city. 1881

brought Hermann Adolf Kühn to the Academy directorship. A little known craftsman,

Kühn proved to be visionary when it came to the arts school. He made the first important

hires of progressive artists by taking on Max Wislicenus, a member of the Munich

Secession, the internationally acclaimed Munich landscape painter Carl Ernst

Morgenstern, and the then unknown young Berlin architect Poelzig. It was under Kühn

that the Breslau school successfully argued for the name change from ‘school’ to

‘academy’ based on the comparison of its curriculum with that of Kassel, Königsberg,

and Düsseldorf.38 But Breslau was never an academy in the historic sense of the word.

Because the Academy began its evolution as an art school, then soon after added applied

art school with a mandate to educate hand-workers for regional industry, it was never

steeped in the outmoded and rigid European academic tradition.39 Thus, when Hans

Poelzig became director in 1903 he could fairly easily begin the transition to a modern

academy.

Poelzig both extended and transformed Kühn’s work. Poelzig’s structural reforms to the

Academy included discarding the old curricular division into three areas in favor of a

division into seven, then later thirteen, so-called daily classes. These were: freehand

drawing, decorative drawing and painting, decorative model drawing and painting --- soon

broadened to drawing from nature, textile arts, figurative drawing and painting, landscape

drawing and painting, plastic modeling --- soon divided into figurative, ornamental and

decorative sculpture, and architectonic drawing and design --- later renamed space

planning and still later, architecture.40 Because Poelzig’s system did not separate the

students into fine and applied arts courses of study there was even more fluidity in the

program than had existed during Kühn’s tenure. In addition, Poelzig broadened both the

support classes and workshop offerings. Another innovation Poelzig put in place was the

individualized educational program tailored to each student’s talents and needs. Students

also were permitted to enter the workshops immediately, rather than wait until they had

passed a preliminary course. Poelzig added the workshops for embroidery, textile, and

garment design; a bronze foundry with engraving and etching; a cabinet-making shop; a

lithography workshop; and an enameling and glass-painting workshop.41 During Poelzig’s

directorship, the workshops operated under the supervision of two collaborators: the

professor and the master. The professor was responsible for design instruction; the

master helped with execution of the design --- an innovation that preceded the Bauhaus

division into Form Instructor and Master Instructor.42 Not only did Poelzig modernize the

Academy’s pedagogy, he hired new young faculty to fill its ranks: Wanda Bibrowicz and

Else Wislicenus for the Textile workshop; Karl Mühl for bronze work; Ignatius Taschner

and Tillman Schmitz for engraving; Hans Rossmann for glass painting, Arnold Busch

and Anna Gritschker-Kunzendorf for graphics and ornamental art, and the painter Karl

Hanusch who is remembered for incorporating all the latest artistic ideas into his

teaching.43 More importantly, many of the people Poelzig appointed had strong

backgrounds in both art and applied art so they could effectively teach to both

constituencies. Further, Poelzig kept many of the older faculty like Morgenstern,

Kaempffer, Irrman, Schwarzbach, and Werner-Schwarzburg so that, already during his

tenure, the Academy presented multiple artistic viewpoints rather than a consistent single

one. Students could develop individual artistic voices based on a thorough knowledge of

the many options available to them. This was also different from the decidedly

contemporary, anti-historical bias at the Bauhaus. Poelzig believed in historic continuity

in art. ‘‘The flight from all that history has given can so little rescue us as the purely

decorative use of past forms.’’44 For Poelzig, therefore, studying history gave the artist

material with which to work and to reference as he developed new forms. He

differentiated between studying historical forms and copying them.

Poelzig’s innovations did not mean the loss of identity for either artist or craftsman,

however. ‘‘All of the workshops were conceived merely as trial, and to a certain degree,

teaching workshops, not as replacements for true apprenticeships. Herein I found myself

in the strongest contradiction to Muthesius, who, finally through the renaming of the

municipal Hand-worker schools in his department [at the Ministry of Commerce] into

Hand-worker and Applied Arts schools, wanted to take the name Academy for Art and

Applied Arts from the establishment I directed.’’45 According to the Poelzig model, the

designer was the conceptual mind behind the work and the master craftsman was the

executor. In his mind, drawing and painting were the artist’s principle crafts, except in

instances where the artist needed other skills for his work such as in the case of

sculptors.46 According to Poelzig, art and craft shared the need for a spiritual foundation

as a basis for good form-making. The technical aspect of making was a separate

problem.47 Poelzig was highly skeptical about functionalism that he viewed as dangerous

technology- and machine-worship. In a letter to Bruno Taut, Poelzig warned that

everything related to the machine should not be sacred to contemporary architects lest

they fall into the same rut of their 19th century predecessors who worshipped styles.48

Poelzig’s aim as a teacher was ‘‘to bring each student to recognize his special qualities.’’

He believed his role was to critically assess student work, contemporary buildings and

architectonic principles, and thereby help the student to develop critical faculties that

would allow him to discover his own voice.49

Poelzig’s reforms anticipated the Bauhaus in yet another way. He believed students

ought to test their ideas in real world projects so he employed Academy students for his

private commissions. Poelzig also emphatically believed that the Academy’s strength

came from its ties to Breslau and Silesia. He encouraged students and faculty to

participate in local and regional competitions, to volunteer for local associations, to

exhibit, and to be active in local government. He later bitterly criticized his successors

for distancing themselves from the community.50 Lastly, the Academy mounted annual

public exhibitions of student and faculty work to which the community was invited.

After 1918

When Poelzig stepped down from the directorship in 1916, he acted as an advisor for the

choice of new director. In a series of letters Poelzig wrote to the Ministry of Culture, he

struggled to decide who would be most appropriate. The candidates included: Bruno

Taut, Friedrich Lahrs, Endell, Heinrich Tessenow, and Gropius. Despite Gropius’ efforts

to secure the post, Poelzig eventually backed Endell. Poelzig was afraid that Gropius was

too enamored of technology and industrial production to be a good fit for Breslau.51 In a

letter from 1916 to Gropius, Poelzig commented on Gropius’ proposal for establishing an

art school that was a consulting entity for industry, applied arts and handwork, ‘‘I am

naturally rather skeptical and know, from experience, how difficult it is to mediate

between a school and industry. In my opinion, one ought not to keep the schools in their

current favored form. One ought to found privileged workshops so the concerned

supervisors --- architects, sculptors, etc. --- can give consecutive state or city

assignments….’’52 In another essay, Poelzig wrote about technical and art education,

"Any technical [education] as subject in an…art academy cripples…the best proof of this

is the increasing tendency towards a pseudoscientific approach to the architecture

profession…."53 Poelzig believed Endell was committed to creativity. Marg Moll wrote,

‘‘When Poelzig left Breslau in 1916, he esteemed Endell and his art, for his clear ideas

and integrity, Poelzig held the conviction that Endell was not ready for any concessions,

and therefore suggested him as his successor.’’54 Poelzig seems to have seen Endell as a

kindred spirit --- someone who would continue to steer the school in the direction in which

Poelzig had moved it.

Endell was educated in philosophy, psychology, and aesthetics at Tübingen. When he

moved to Munich he attended Theodor Lipps’ lectures on ‘‘empathy theory.’’ In 1896 he

published a tract, ‘‘On Beauty,’’ in which he described the way that line, color, form, and

proportion outwardly manifest inner beauty. His professed goal as designer was to

realize beautiful objects through the effective use of these tools.55 Also in Munich, Endell

befriended Hermann Obrist, Richard Riemerschmid, Martin Dülfer, and Bernhard

Pankok. He turned to design apparently at Obrist’s encouragement but never studied

formally. Endell’s lack of experience with formalized art or architecture education made

him a controversial choice in Breslau although Endell’s range of work on buildings,

furniture, and objects made him an ideal choice for an art and applied arts school.56

Rading wrote about the bitter resistance Endell met at the beginning of his tenure.57

Nevertheless, Endell made substantial changes to the Academy. He assumed his position

just after the November Revolution 1918 at the time the Arbeitsrat für Kunst in Berlin

and the Council of Spiritual Workers in Breslau published calls for art education

reforms.58 The Breslau group was modeled after Berlin so that its demands echo the more

famous Berlin group: abolishing bureaucratic privilege, firing unimaginative teachers,

teaching new artistic ideas, opening instructional workshops, to name a few.59 Although

Endell does not seem to have belonged to either group, many of his faculty members did.

Mueller and August Grisebach signed the Berlin manifesto; Von Gosen, Wislicenus,

Moll, Bednorz, Hanusch, Paul Heim, Franz Landsberger, Friedrich Pautsch, and Heinrich

Tischler signed the Breslau document.60 Endell responded to the calls for reform by

altering Poelzig’s organizational system, something Poelzig never forgave, to reinstate

the three-tiered structure: preliminary course, free and applied arts, and master ateliers or

workshops. Endell then followed the model implemented several months earlier in

Dresden by discarding the old way of defining courses according to subject matter in

favor of defining them according to the names of individual faculty members. Thus, in

place of a course in Material and Style, Form-making, or Decorative Arts, there was the

Mueller studio, Moll studio, and Kanoldt studio. This seemingly minor alteration in fact

had enormous philosophical implications since it suggested the preeminence of artistic

concepts over skills.

Endell concentrated his energies during the first two years on improving the quality of the

faculty, a necessary step if the new system was to be effective.61 He hired several

distinguished artists: Matisse-trained Moll, Brücke member Mueller, Berlin Secessionist

Von Kardorff, and Rading, who became a leading figure in the Neues Bauen, the well-

known art historians Wilhelm Pinder and August Grisebach, and later Bednorz, and

Kanoldt, who was a prominent neo-realist painter. Under Endell, the architecture

program expanded to include instruction in general design as well as conversions,

country cottages, urban housing, and housing estates. The addition of housing estates as

a subject was certainly a response to the postwar housing demands in Germany, and

especially in Breslau, where shortages and substandard conditions persisted into the

beginning of the 1930s. The one reform neither Endell nor Moll was able to effect,

however, was a change in the architecture program’s status. Like the Bauhaus, Breslau

was only able to offer a ‘pre-course’ in architecture. Students had to continue their

studies elsewhere in order to receive the accredited degree for practice.

Endell shared Poelzig’s attitude towards technology, ‘‘he accepted the need for the

machine, but demanded logic and considered application. He also understood the artistic

motivated use of technology.’’62 Thus the workshops retained their earlier function.

Endell added two: the printing arts and plaster casting facilities. Endell was not able to

change the Academy to a Technical High School, however, a change that would have

allowed Academy educated architects to take their exams and become licensed without

continuing their studies elsewhere. Like his predecessors, Endell was active in local arts

associations and maintained an active public exhibition program for the school. His

reforms did propel the Academy forward; historians credit Endell with paving the way

for Moll under whom the Academy reached its zenith.63

Moll was not an autodidact after the fashion of Endell, although he too had no formal arts

education, rather, Moll studied in various master ateliers including those of Hans

Leistikow and Lovis Corinth in Berlin and Henri Matisse in Paris. By the time Moll

joined the Breslau faculty, he was a well-known painter who had exhibited at the

progressive Paul Cassirer Gallery in Berlin where he was first shown alongside Edvard

Munch. From his appointment in 1925 Moll continued Academy reforms. The greatest

structural change he made was to abolish the distinction between students pursuing a

career as fine artists and those studying for teaching careers. Moll continued the practice

instituted under Poelzig of implementing individual study plans. One innovation was to

have students work with two instructors simultaneously so that at all times, the students

were under the influence of at least two different masters. Moll used the positions

vacated by an inordinate number of retirements to gather several leading figures of the

German avant-garde in Breslau: Dobers, Holz, Mense, Scharoun, Josef Vinecky, and later

former Bauhäusler Molzahn, Muche, and Schlemmer. These artists and architects

represented very different positions within the avant-garde. Dobers responded to cubist

influences in his work; Muche was a pioneer of informal art; Mense was a magic realist;

Molazhn taught the ‘biophysics of form;’ and Schlemmer explored a sort of humanized

constructivism. Scharoun first gained notoriety for his conceptual drawings; his work

constantly changed a reflection of his belief in creativity over style. For Moll, the

attribute shared by his faculty was ‘‘belief’’ --- presumably in art itself.64 Moll strengthened

the master atelier system because he thought, ‘‘the many-sided aspects of the masters

encouraged the students to develop their own strengths and hindered them from simply

copying [their professors]...’’65 Moll is credited with trying to balance differing

viewpoints. He wrote, ‘‘the Breslau Academy is not a school in the true sense of the

word, with pre- set teaching methods but rather an expression of personalities who do not

impart their knowledge to the students according to a plan but each in his own particular

way….’’66 Like Poelzig, Moll believed in the continuity of art rather than a break with

history, ‘‘We do not break the bridges to the past….’’67 Although he was considered

progressive, Moll did not espouse all of the most radical notions. According to his

model, arts education is best served by offering students courses in a plurality of artistic

positions from which they can develop their individual ideas.

Under Moll the workshops retained their importance as places of trial and

experimentation. He opened a paper workshop modeled, interestingly, after the Bauhaus

where Josef Albers and Johannes Itten had successfully used paper modeling as a design

tool.68 Moll also lobbied the Ministry for permission to start a bookbinding workshop but

was refused although he was able to add typography to the roster. With the addition of

Scharoun Moll was able to further broaden the architecture program. Study plans and

notes demonstrate how advanced the architecture program became by the late 1920s.

Instruction covered architecture history, design principles, typological study, technical,

practical, and economic aspects of design, as well as the psychological and spiritual. The

courses were framed as artistic endeavors rather than technical ones however.69 Thus the

Academy remained a school for training creative talent rather than technical expertise.

During Moll’s tenure the exhibition activities continued apace and the Academy received

more national press attention for them. Articles appeared in Kunst und Künstler, Das

Junge Schlesien, Die Form, Das Kunstblatt and elsewhere. Undoubtedly, the most visible

project was the 1929 Werkbund Exhibition Live and Work Space. The Breslau

exhibition was the second model housing estate mounted by the Werkbund and differed

from its more famous Stuttgart predecessor in several ways. It featured local architects

only, looked at both living and working spaces, and was freer in design expression. The

aesthetic variety reflected the Academy’s emphasis on the individual voice as well as a

pragmatic response to local politics. Breslau’s City Planning Office, a co-sponsor of the

exhibition, would neither tolerate an exhibit featuring international figures nor aesthetic

restrictions like those imposed in Stuttgart by Mies van der Rohe. The eleven architects

who participated in the model housing estate shared only one attribute -- all were

members of the Werkbund. Aesthetically, the project varied from the Sachlichkeit of

Emil Lange and Paul Häusler, to the curving free composition of Hans Scharoun, to the

dynamic pragmatism of Adolf Rading. Buildings were not just white but ochre, green,

and salmon. The kindergarten used wooden structure in a Scandinavian-style

modernism; Gustav Wolf’s houses were a kind of abstracted traditionalism with pitched

roofs and punched windows! Academy faculty organized everything, designed the

exhibits, several of the buildings, and the publicity materials. At the end of the

exhibition, faculty moved into many of the units where they enjoyed a miniature artists’

community. The exhibit was important enough to attract national and international media

attention although the reception was mixed. Many criticized the Breslauers for their

eclecticism something that was viewed not as stylistic pluralism but timidity.

Adolf Behne wrote in 1931 that, ‘‘The Breslau Academy was the first to become

reanimated with the new, fresh contemporary spirit…a teaching body which, while not

unmindful of or ignoring the many diverse tendencies of modern art, yet contrives to

achieve a unity of purpose and outlook.’’70 Unlike the Bauhaus, where unity manifested

itself as a style, Breslau found unity in diversity. The freedoms accorded its faculty and

students made Schlemmer revel in the “wonderful relaxation [in Breslau] after the boiling

cauldron in Dessau.”71 Relaxation should not be confused with lack of rigor or

seriousness. It simply expressed the atmosphere of mutual support and the non-

ideological bent of the Breslauers. The Academy was a paradigm of the a-stylistic,

pluralistic approach to arts education. Perhaps most importantly, its emphasis on art as a

creative act supports one of the fundamental tenets of modernism -- challenging

authority and accepted practices of all kinds. For these reasons, the Academy deserves to

be remembered.

1 Adolf Behne, "The Breslau Academy: the State Art School of the Silesian Capital: an important center of German teaching," The Studio, Vol. CI, No. 459, June 1931, pp. 443-449. 2 Adolf Rothenberg, “Die Kunstakademie Breslau,” Die Form, 4 Jg 1929, H. II, p. 326. 3 Hartmut Frank, ‘‘Ein Bauhaus vor dem Bauhaus,’’Bauwelt 41, 1983, pp. 1640-58. 4 Other art schools and academies considered influential were: Dresden, Kassel, Düsseldorf, and the Frankfurt, Debschitz, and Reimann schools. See Hans M. Wingler, Kunstschulreform 1900-1933 (Berlin: 1977) and John Maciuika, Before the Bauhaus (Cambridge: 2006). 5 See correspondence in Scharoun Archive, Germanisches Nationalmuseum Abteilung Bildende Künste (GN/ABK), Fond. I/C. More general histories in: Kunstschulreform and Academies of Art. 6 Gropius' declaration of February 3, 1922 first outlined the new direction. 7 Years later Georg Muche wrote about the opposing views extant at the Bauhaus something he apparently considered a source of excitement and productive energy but Gropius fought against. Georg Muche Blickpunkt --- Sturm, Dada, Bauhaus (Munich: 1961). 8 For discussions of the dispute see Maciuika and Kurt Junghanns, Der Deutsche Werkbund: Sein erstes Jahrzehnt. (Berlin: Hensch, 1982). 9 Although Gropius later claimed the Bauhaus always focused on industrial production, most historians agree that this was not so. Gropius began exploring the notion in 1916 long before he was appointed director but actual implementation came sometime after 1922. See Magdalena Droste, Bauhaus: 1919-1933 (Berlin: 2006), Howard Dearstyne, Inside the Bauhaus, (New York: 1986),Hans M. Wingler, Das Bauhaus: 1919-1933 Weimar Dessau Berlin und die Nachfolge in Chicago seit 1937. (Bramsche: 1968), Lothar Lang, Das Bauhaus 1919-1933 (Berlin: 1966), among others. 10 Poelzig, Endell, Moll und die Breslauer Kunstakademie 1911-1932. (Berlin: 1965). 11 Op cit, p. 7. My translation from the German. 12 Petra Hölscher, Die Akademie für Kunst und Kunstgewerbe zu Breslau: Wege einer Kunstschule 1791-1932. (Kiel: 2003), Hartmut Frank, pp. 1640-58, and Piotr Łukaszewicz, ‘‘The Academy of Arts and Crafts,’’ Rassegna 40, year XI, 40/4, December 1989, pp. 62-72. 13 Recent books on Breslau include Hölscher’s history of the Academy, Beate Störtkuhl and Jerzy Ilkosz’Hans Poelzig in Breslau: Architektur und Kunst 1900-1916 (Delmenhorst: 2000), Johanna Brade, Zwischen Künstlerboheme und Wirtschaftskrise. Otto Mueller als Professor der Breslauer Akademie 1919-1930, (Görlitz --- Zittau: 2004), Juden in Breslau 1850-1945: Beiträge zu einer Ausstellung. Ed. Horst Kühnel (München: 1993). Gregor Thum, Die fremde Stadt, Breslau 1945. (Munich: Siedler, 2003), Beate Szmanski, Der Architekt Adolf Rading (1888-1957), (Munich: 1992). 14 For the nature of Gropius’ activities on behalf of the Bauhaus see Bauhaus Culture: From Weimar to the Cold War, ed. Kathleen James-Chakraborty (Minneapolis: 2006). 15 Alfred Rohde-Königsberg, "Ostpreussens Romantiker," Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 1933, pp. 21-37. 16 Maciuika and Kunstschulreform. 17 See for example Adolf Loos' essays Ins Lehre Gesprochen 1897-1900 (Wien: 1962), Alfred Lichtwark, Wege und Ziele des Dilettantismus (Munchen: 1894), and Gottfried Semper, Der Stil in den technischen Künsten oder: Praktische Aesthetik (Frankfurt: 1860). These are just a few of dozens of essays deriding then current art and architecture practice. 18 Reprinted in Gottfried Semper, Wissenschaft, Industrie und Kunst und andere Schriften über die Architektur und Kunstunterricht, (Berlin: 1966). 19 Pevsner, p. 266. 20 Maciuika; Hans-Joachim Hubrich, Hermann Muthesius die Schriften; and Junghanns, Der Deutsche Werkbund. 21 Cited in Maciuika, p. 21 from Waetzoldt, "Die Entwicklung der kunstgewerblichen Unterrichtswesens in Preussen." Deutsche Rundschau, 176 (1918), p. 366. 22 The successive directors of the two schools attacked each other in the local and national press. A particularly heated exchange ensued between 1918 and 1925 between August Endell at the Academy and Richard Heyer at the School. See articles in the Breslauer Zeitung, Berliner Tagesblatt, and others. 23 Letter dated April 1919, files of the Stadt Breslau, National Museum of Art, Wroclaw and Iris Birgit Hartmann, ‘‘Die Breslauer Museen 1810-1945,’’ in Jahrbuch des Bundesinstituts für Ostdeutsche

Kultur und Geschichte, Band 5, 1997, pp. 101-137. 24 Akten der Stadt Breslau, 1328, Staatsarchiv Breslau. 25 Kunstausstellung Breslau 1920, Ausstellungsgebäude Scheitnig, June-August 1920 (Breslau: 1920). 26 Op cit. 27 Akten Provinzialverwaltung v. Niederschlesien -- Gesellschaft der Kunstfreunde Breslau, WSPS 1316, Staatsarchiv Breslau. 28 See archives of Stadt Breslau, Schriftverkehr, II/60, National Museum Wroclaw. 29 Susan Henderson, ‘‘Ernst May and the Campaign to Resettle the Countryside,’’ JSAH, Vol. 61, No. 2, June 2002, pp. 188-211. 30 Akten der Stadt Breslau, 1328, Staatsarchiv Breslau. 31 Theo Von Gosen, ‘‘Künstlerbund und Akademie,’’ Februar Ausstellung des Künslterbund Schlesien, Breslau 1932. 32 I.HA Rep 92 Effenberger Nr. 50, Schlesischer Bund fur Heimatschutz, Breslau, im Schloss Ostflugel, Fernsprecher Ring 7679, Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Dahlem. 33 Many Academy faculty wrote about how difficult it was to practice in Breslau. See the Poelzig and Rading Archives Akademie der Künste (AdK), and Von Gosen Archives GN/ABK. 34 Kunstlerbund Schlesien, Akten der Stadt Breslau, 1328, Staatsarchiv Breslau. 35 Erich Wiese, "Die Stiftung Carl Sachs für das Schlesische Museum für Bildende Künste in Breslau," Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 1932, pp. 149-152. 36 Correspondence of the National Museum, Breslau contains records of some of the loans others are documented in exhibition catalogs. 37 Karl Scheffler, ‘‘Die Sammlung Max Silberberg,’’Kunst und Künstler, 1931, pp. 3-20 and interviews with Ismar Littmann’s son-in-law, Haim Haller, Feburary 2006. 38 Hölscher, p. 51-2. 39 Pevsner. 40 Piotr Łukaszewicz, ‘‘Die Breslauer Akademie für Kunst unter dem Direktorat Hans Poelzigs,’’ in Beate Störtkuhl and Jerzy Ilkosz’s Hans Poelzig in Breslau: Architektur und Kunst 1900-1916 (Delmenhorst: 2000), p. 34 and in Hölscher, pp. 126-140. 41 Łukaszewicz, p. 34. 42 Droste, Dearstyne, Wingler, and Wick, for histories of the development of the Bauhaus workshops and the school pedagogy. 43 Op Cit, p.34. 44 Hans Poelzig, ‘‘Gärung in der Architektur,’’ Das Duetsche Kunstgewerbe (Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1906). 45 Hans Poelzig, letter from the Poelzig Archive, GN/ABK, dated May 17, 1933, GN/ABK I, C. 46 IBID. 47 Hans Poelzig, ‘‘Speech to the Deutsche Werkbund,’’ 1919, reprinted in Hans Poelzig, ed. Julius Posener (Berlin: 1970), p. 111. 48 Hans Poelzig, letter to Bruno Taut dated January 23, 1919, Poelzig Archive, GN/ABK, Nurnberg, I, C. 49 Poelzig und seine Schule, Exhibition Catalog, AdK (Berlin: 1931), p. 3 and Bau Hefte, 1951, Nr. 2, pp. 71-6. 50 Hans Poelzig, Letter to Taut, dated Jan. 23, 1919, GN/ABK, I,C. 51 Several letters between Gropius and Poelzig survive at the Poelzig Archive, GN/ABK, Fond I/II, the AdK Berlin, Poelzig, 01.17, and the Werkbund Archive, Berlin. 52 Letter to Gropius dated August 30, 1916, Poelzig Archive, AdK Berlin. 53 Hans Poelzig, "Bauschule: Handwerker- bezw. Gewerkschule," Poelzig Archive, GN/ABK, Fond I, B-5, February 1919. 54 Marg Moll, “Erinnerungen,” Marg Moll Archive, GN/ABK. 55 August Endell, Vom Sehen (Basel: 1995). 56 Poelzig, Endell, Moll and Hölscher. 57 See letter dated 11 February, 1920 to ‘Fritz’ in the Rading Archive, Rad. 1, AdK Berlin. 58 I.HA Rep 92 Effenberger, Nr. 47, "Rat geistiger Arbeiter," 1919, Preussischer Geheimes Staatsarchiv, Berlin.

59 I.HA Rep 92 Effenberger, Nr. 32, Manifesto Rat geistiger Arbeit 1919, Geheimes Staatsarchiv Berlin. 60 IBID. 61 Klaus Reichels Vom Jugendstil zur Sachlichkeit, August Endell (1871-1925) cited in Johannes Rickert, ‘‘ Das Pädagogisches Prinzip der Breslauer Kunstakademie (1900-1932),’’ in Wingler, p. 207. 62 Rickert, p. 208. 63 Rickert, Poelzig, Endell, Moll, and Scheyer. Frank is more critical of Endell’s role. 64 Cited in Poelzig, Endell, Moll, p. 28. 65 Op cit, p. 30. 66 Oskar Moll, Ausstellung Staatliche Akademie für Kunst und Kunstgewerbe zu Breslau in der Kunsthalle am Christophoriplatz, (Breslau: 1929). 67 Oskar Moll, ‘‘Staatliche Akademie für Kunst- und Kunstgewerbe Breslau, Ausstellung der Studierenden,’’ Catalog for the 1930 exhibition (Breslau: 1930), p. 1. 68 Hölscher p. 276-7. 69 Rading Archive, AdK Berlin, Rad, 6 and 78. 70 Behne, "The Breslau Academy,’’ pp. 443-449.

QuickTime™ and a decompressor

are needed to see this picture.

1) The Breslau Academy ca. 1920. Courtesy of Stanislaw Klimek.





2) Hans Poelzig. 3) August Endell.



4) Oskar and Marg Moll.



5) Atelier Window Breslau, 1920. Oskar Moll.



6) Self Portrait, Otto Mueller. 1922.



. 7) Still Life, n.d. Alexander Kanoldt.



8) Mohrenapotheke, Adolf Rading, 1928. Perhaps the first use of translucent glass for exterior cladding.

Not the Bauhaus: The Breslau Academy of Art and Applied Arts

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Transcript of Not the Bauhaus: The Breslau Academy of Art and Applied Arts