CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 12/27/2019

A remarkable facsimile edition of the first Bauhaus exhibition catalog, 1923

These 1923 photographs of a sculpture by Oskar Schlemmer are reproduced from Lars Müllers remarkable new facsimile edition of Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar 1919–1923, the catalog for the first Bauhaus exhibition, held the same year in Weimar under the direction of Walter Gropius. One of the most beautifully designed and historically important books on our Spring 2020 list, this 9.75 x 9.75-inch hardback volume with cover by Herbert Bayer contains several lovely papers, exquisite printing and of course the original layout and typography of László Moholy-Nagy. It comes bound in a clear slipcase with a second volume containing the first full English translation of the catalog, inside of which is also bound a small poster of Gropius's manifesto and program. "Let us aspire to, conceive, and create the new structure of the future, one which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting as a single entity, he writes, "and which will one day rise toward heaven from the hands of a million workers like the crystal symbol of a new faith to come."