Bauhaus100 print portfolio exhibition at NGI

I was looking forward to seeing this exhibition at the National Gallery of Ireland, and was not disappointed. In celebration of the centenary of the founding of the Bauhaus school, the NGI borrowed four print portfolios from the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. The portfolios were originally put together to raise funds for the Bauhaus art school (though because of German inflation at the time, this was impossible) and contained work by teachers at the Bauhaus and international artists who were petitioned to contribute. Wassily Kandinsky was one of the masters at the Bauhaus, and this colour lithograph, Composition, is from 1922.

This is a detail of Hoffmanesque Scene, 1921, also a colour lithograph, designed by Paul Klee, another master at Bauhaus. The Bauhaus students did the printing editions of the works for the portfolios in the school studio, giving them both printing experience and exposure to the work of international artists.

I particularly loved this linocut, Two Dancers, c1913, by Christian Rohlfs. It was exciting to see the works of so many artists who, for me, are like household names (Kandinsky, Schwitters, Kokoshka, Boccioni, Feininger, Albers, Goncharova, etc) but I was completely unfamiliar with Rohlfs. Now I am!