Herbert Bayer: The Complete Works

by Herbert Bayer (Photographer), Arthur Allen Cohen

Shows architecture, sculpture, photographs, industrial designs, paintings and drawings by the Austrian-born artist

Genres: Design

448 pages, Hardcover

First published March 25, 1984

Reviews

[Kerfe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I became interested in Herbert Bayer because of his photography: specifically his famous photomontage "The Lonely Metropolitan" with the open hands, eyes in center, hanging over a building facade. Cohen thinks of the photos as minor in the larger context of the artist's work, but even after having ploughed through the author's minute and adulatory descriptions of Bayer's paintings, I still have a different point of view.

Bayer was a student and teacher at the Bauhaus--where would 20th Century art and design have gone without its influence?--and his early Bauhaus-influenced collages still look fresh. I'm a big fan of collage, and Bayer revisited collage in brand new ways throughout his career.

The graphic design is groundbreaking and still amazing 80 years on, and the environmental sculptural work is really, really interesting. And I do like that Bayer rambled in his painting; he did not remain long in any one phase. There is a wide variety; of course some of it appealed to me more than others. The chromatic works are my favorites. They are definitely of their 1970's time, but the sharp edged color explorations don't look old. And it's to Bayer's credit that he explored color deeply and then moved on, incorporating elements from all of his past work in a new and also intriguing way.

Still I love the photos most of all.

Cohen has written a exhaustively researched book and yes, I learned a lot, but I did feel a bit overwhelmed by the overly detailed analysis. You don't have to read every word, or even every other word. It's visual art: skim a bit and then look, look, look.