Walter Allner, Alexander Liberman and Fred Troller each maintained two distinct yet overlapping artistic practices—fine and applied. They were nourished and influenced by both. Bauhaus to Your House: Personal Work, a new catalog published by Vallarino Fine Art, makes abundantly clear that segregating one from the other is like separating the heart from the soul.
Vincent Vallarino is a collector and dealer of inspired paintings, drawings and prints created by 20th-century designers. The thesis behind this catalog is the artists’ respective relationship to the Bauhaus as pertains the echoes of form and spirit as they developed. “Their independent artistic production reveals a deeper engagement with the Bauhaus ethos,” Vallerino has written.
Although this catalog stages the artwork specifically for the environment, it is not a merely decorative exercise. The designers’ work does more than spruce up a room, but rather serves to remind the viewer that the Bauhaus had attempted to create a unity of function and aesthetic pleasure.
“Viewed together, the personal work of these three artists reveals a rich and often overlooked dimension of Midcentury,” adds Vallarino, “… but it is in their independent practice that the enduring spirit of the Bauhaus is most fully realized—continuing to shape the visual language of modern design today.”
Walter Allner, Untitled (#94), c. 1960–1970
Walter Allner, Untitled (#77), c. 1960–1970
Alexander Liberman (left), Untitled 1960, and (right), Circle Path, 1952
Alexander Libermann (left), Black-Yellow, 1962. (Right), Untitled, 1959
Fred Troller (left), Untitled, c. 1959. (Right), Untitled c. 1939
Fred Troller (left), Untitled, 1970s. (Right), Untitled, 1970s.
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