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“We sketch in cubic boxes”

When Hans Flemming (1877–1968), then editor responsible for the text section of the ULK, published negative verses on the Expressionists in November 1928, Duwdiwani illustrated a caricature reflecting his memories of his time at the Bauhaus. The caricature includes impressions of Bauhaus festivals – such as the legendary costume party that took place in 1924 at the “Zum Ilmschlößchen” pub in Weimar. The verses also refer to the “cubic boxes” in which artists worked after moving to Dessau in 1925.

“We sketch in cubic boxes”

When Hans Flemming (1877–1968), then editor responsible for the text section of the ULK, published negative verses on the Expressionists in November 1928, Duwdiwani illustrated a caricature reflecting his memories of his time at the Bauhaus. The caricature includes impressions of Bauhaus festivals – such as the legendary costume party that took place in 1924 at the “Zum Ilmschlößchen” pub in Weimar. The verses also refer to the “cubic boxes” in which artists worked after moving to Dessau in 192
ULK, vol. 57 / n. 44, 2.11.1928, p. 354
Ball of the Expressionist
“We are the expressionists
and disturb the husband’s rest.
Woe to her whose express we observe with a certain purpose.
Until she is an ex and purrs: “Man to!”
We sketch in cubic boxes,
we paint the bourgeoisie as Wildebeests,
we rejuvenate the old guardsmen
through the glands of a kangaroo.”
(translated) H. Fl. (Hans Flemming)
reproduction from: Hans Maria Wingler, Das Bauhaus [1975], p.364
The band “Bauhauskapelle”

Hans Hoffmann, Heinrich Koch, Rudolph Paris, Andreas Weininger

Foto: Louis Held. © Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin
Bauhaus party

at the Ilmschlößchen in Weimar on November 19, 1924.

Foto: Edmund Collein (1927/1928). © Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau
Students in Walter Gropius’ building studio

(amongst others with Kurt Stolp, Hermann Bunzel und Hermann Trinkaus)

Foto: Emil Theis, 1926. © Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau
The “cubic” architecture of the Bauhaus in Dessau, completed in 1926

Peter Hahn (Hg.): Bauhaus Berlin. Auflösung Dessau 1932; Schließung Berlin 1933; Bauhäusler und Drittes Reich. Eine Dokumentation. Weingarten 1985

Wulf Herzogenrath, Stefan Kraus (Hg.): Erich Consemüller. Fotografien Bauhaus-Dessau. München 1989.

Bernd Hüttner, Georg Leidenberger (Hg.): 100 Jahre Bauhaus. Vielfalt, Konflikt und Wirkung. Berlin 2019.

Winfried Nerdinger: Das Bauhaus: Werkstatt der Moderne. München 2018.

Frank Simon-Ritz, Klaus-Jürgen Winkler, Gerd Zimmermann (Hg.): Aber wir sind! Wir wollen! Und wir schaffen! Von der Großherzoglichen Kunstschule zur Bauhaus-Universität. 1860–2010. Band 1 (1860–1945). Weimar 2010.

Michael Siebenbrodt, Lutz Schöbe: Bauhaus 1919–1933. New York 2009.