Michele & Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts, Print Gallery, First Floor

A collection of rarely-seen works by American and European artists who were associated with the Bauhaus School, including Josef Albers, Walter Dexel, Lyonel Feininger, Vassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee. The prints on view represent a variety of approaches to printmaking and include drypoint, etching, lithograph, serigraph and woodcut.

The Bauhaus School, or school of architecture, was one of the first colleges of design. It was the result of a merger between the Weimar Academy of Arts and the Weimar School of Arts and Crafts in Germany. Founded by Walter Gropius in 1919 during the Industrial Revolution, the Bauhaus School brought together many international contemporary artists. The school combined crafts and fine arts and was famous for its design curriculum. Industrial design was an important component of the movement.

The simple, functional forms commonly associated with Bauhaus emerged in Germany as elements of the Modernist and Expressionist movements. The German Expressionist artists and their Bauhaus followers were active printmakers.  

The Bauhaus Movement significantly impacted European and American art and architecture trends in the 1920s. The school was located in three German cities: Weimar (1919-1925), Dessau (1925-1932), and Berlin (1932-1933), where it was eventually closed by the Nazi regime in 1933.