BAUHAUS 3 1929
VIERTELJAHR-ZEITSCHRIFT FUR GESTALTUNG

Ernst Kallai [Editor], Joost Schmidt [Designer]

8.25 x 11.75 saddle-stitched edition with 36 pages and 37 photographs and illustrations. The "Quarterly Magazine for Design" served as house organ of the Bauhaus Dessau and provided an extraordinary snapshot of the productivity of the Bauhaus Dessau from its high point under the directorship of Walter Gropius to its sliding decline under Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe.

Contents:

• Junkerskoje gas und wasser. Exhibition design by Alexander Schawinsky, Joost Schmidt and Johan Niegerman. Photo by Stone.
• Veranwortung des schaffenden. Text by Hans Reidel. Exhibition design by Alexander Schawinsky and Joost Schmidt. Photos by Stone, Jacobi
• Lob des plakates. Text by E. Gimenez Cabailero.
• Kinderzeichnungen. Text by Lene Schmidt-Nonne. Artwork by children aged 9 - 11.
• Schopferische ErziehungText by H. F. Geist. Artwork by children aged 9 - 10.
• Kindheit der irisText by Ernst Kallai. Two drawings by Paul Klee.
• Der FragenText by Fritz Kuhr.
• BauhausnachrichtenFeatures stage work by Oskar Schlemmer, photographed by Albert Braun, Lux Feininger, Anne Binnemann. Buildings by hannes Meyer, photographed by Walter Peterhans.

Fourteen issues of the Bauhaus magazine were produced between 1926 to 1931, and this cover -- featuring a childs' handmade mask -- is an instantly recognizable icon from the Dessau years.All fourteen issues were assembled with excellent example of the functional graphic design and new typography, as practiced by the European Avant-Garde in the late 1920s all the way up to the point where the lights went out all over Europe. Joost Schmidt is the Designer credited with "picture layout" for this issue.

Joost Schmidt [1893 -1948] began his studies in 1910 at the Grand Ducal Saxonian School of Arts in Weimar and subsequently became a master student of Max Thedy. He received his diploma in painting in the 1913/14 winter semester. After military service and a period as a prisoner of war, he returned to Germany in 1918.

From 1919 to 1924/25, he trained in the workshop for stone and wood sculpture under Johannes Itten and Oskar Schlemmer at the Staatliches Bauhaus Weimar. In 1921/22, his projects included the design and completion of carvings for the Sommerfeld House in Berlin and the design of a poster for the Weimar Bauhaus exhibition of 1923. In 1925, Schmidt accepted an offer from Walter Gropius to become a junior master at the Bauhaus Dessau after passing the journeyman's examination of the Chamber of Crafts Weimar.

That same year, Schmidt married the Bauhaus student Helene Nonne. At the Bauhaus Dessau, Joost taught calligraphy for the preliminary course [1925 - 1932] and directed the sculpture workshop [1928 - 1930], and the advertising, typography and printing workshop and the affiliated photography department [1928 - 1932]. From 1929 to 1930, he was also a life-drawing teacher, teaching life and figure drawing.

In 1934, in collaboration with Walter Gropius, Schmidt designed the "non-iron metals" section of the propaganda exhibition Deutsches Volk – Deutsche Arbeit [German people -- German work]. He opened a studio in Berlin in the same year and also worked as a draughtsman/illustrator of maps. In 1935, he accepted a teaching position at the private art school Kunst und Werk, directed by Hugo Haring. However, he was prevented from practicing his profession due to past affiliation with the Bauhaus. He subsequently worked as a typographer for the publishers Alfred Metzner Verlag and others.

After the war, Max Taut appointed him as a professor at the School of Art in Berlin where he took over the preliminary course for architects. In 1946, he collaborated with other members of the Bauhaus on the design of the exhibition Berlin Plant/Erster Bericht, the first exhibition on the city's plans for reconstruction, held in the Berlin City Palace.

A sample spread from this volume can be viewed here.

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