We have two exceptional daughters. When Lucy Swift Weber and Charlotte Fox Weber were younger, I dedicated two books to both of them, in ways that befit their ages at the time (The Art of Babar when they were little; Balthus: A Biography when they were adolescents). Now they are mature women and can no longer be paired as “the girls.” It’s time for each to be the sole dedicatee of her own book.
Lucy, the older sister, approved this policy in advance of anyone else learning about the dedication of The Bauhaus Group—while knowing the next one will be hers. Having looked at Paul Klee’s work with me first when she was a two-year-old in a backpack, and then when she was eight and she and Charlotte and I went to Bern and the girls stood dazzled before Felix’s puppets, Lucy is someone of immense visual gifts. As with the subjects of this book, this initially became apparent in early childhood; Lucy made remarkable drawings after work by Carpaccio, Ingres, and Balthus. Having been held at the age of three weeks in Anni Albers’s arms, she had Anni, as well as the Alberses’ friends and family, as part of her own upbringing—and she carries their spirit as well as a flair for art and design in her. She is a human being of rare heart.
Charlotte, in her spark and imagination, and in her subsuming aliveness, has a magic all her own. She is one of the greatest joys of her father’s existence, and has an alertness and understanding that never fail to stagger me. More specifically, this radiant and beautiful woman has found and then passed on to me a lot of the richest material in The Bauhaus Group. While pursing her graduate studies in psychoanalytic training at the same time that I was writing about Klee, she undertook intense research on my behalf and came up with rare and thrilling texts that provided unique insight into the complexities of this wonderful artist. She also located and annotated invaluable narratives about Sigmund Freud’s work with Gustav Mahler. Charlotte understands my mind and interests in a way that is a parent’s dream, and read copious material in order to highlight exactly the sort of points for which I longed. She enlarged my vision considerably. Not only for that phenomenal help, but because of a love beyond expression, I dedicate this book to her.
NFW
Paris
June 2009
Notes
WALTER GROPIUS
1. Reginald Isaacs, Gropius: An Illustrated Biography of the Creator of the Bauhaus (Boston: Bulfinch Press, 1991), p. 3.
2. Ibid., p. 13.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid., p. 17.
5. Ibid., p. 18.
6. Hans M. Wingler, The Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, Berlin, Chicago, ed. Joseph Stein, trans. Wolfgang Jabs and Basil Gilbert (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969), p. 20.
7. Ibid, p. 21.
8. Francoise Giroud, Alma Mahler; or The Art of Being Loved, trans. R. M. Stock (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 16.
9. Ibid., p. 17.
10. Ibid, p. 20.
11. Ibid, p. 23.
12. Ibid, p. 79.
13. Alma Mahler Werfel, And the Bridge Is Love (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1958), p. 50.
14. Ibid, p. 51.
15. Giroud, Alma Mahler, p. 81.
16. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 83.
17. Giroud, Alma Mahler, p. 82.
18. Mahler Werfel, And the Bridge, p. 51.
19. Ibid.
20. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 34.
21. Giroud, Alma Mahler, p. 83.
22. Mahler Werfel, And the Bridge, p. 52.
23. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 34, undated letter from Alma Mahler (AM) to Walter Gropius (WG), Vienna, probably June 1910.
24. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 35.
25. Mahler Werfel, And the Bridge, p. 53.
26. Giroud, Alma Mahler, p. 88.
27. Ibid.
28. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 35.
29. Ibid.
30. Ibid.
31. Ibid., quoting letters of September 19 and 21, 1910.
32. Ibid., quoting letter of September 21, 1910.
33. Giroud, Alma Mahler, p. 90.
34. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 35; AM to WG, late October 1910, from New York.
35. Ibid., p. 36; Anna Moll to WG, November 12, 1910, sent from Vienna.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid., WG to AM, late May 1911.
39. Ibid., pp. 36–37; WG to AM, mid-August 1911.
40. Ibid., p. 37; WG to AM, September 18, 1911.
41. Ibid., WG to AM, December 15, 1911.
42. Ibid., p. 38; WG to AM, November 21, 1912.
43. Mahler Werfel, And the Bridge, p. 78.
44. Ibid., p. 72.
45. Ibid., p. 73.
46. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 30.
47. Ibid., p. 38; AM to WG, May 6, 1914.
48. Mahler Werfel, And the Bridge, p. 84.
49. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 41. The date of the letter is incorrect in Isaacs’s footnote; it can’t be November, since it refers to New Year’s.
50. Mahler Werfel, And the Bridge, p. 85.
51. Ibid., pp. 85–86.
52. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 43; AM to WG, probably June 1915.
53. Mahler Werfel, And the Bridge, p. 87.
54. Wingler, Bauhaus, p. 21; Henry van de Velde to WG, April 11, 1915.
55. Ibid.; Van de Velde to WG, July 8, 1915.
56. Ibid., p. 45; F. Mackensen to WG, October 2, 1915.
57. Ibid.; WG to F. Mackensen, October 19, 1915.
58. Ibid.; AM to WG, late fall 1919.
59. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 46.
60. Ibid.; WG to MG, September 1915.
61. Ibid., pp. 47–48; AM to WG, September 1915.
62. Ibid., p. 48; WG to Manon Gropius (MG), December 1915.
63. Ibid.
64. Ibid.; AG to WG, January 1916.
65. Wingler, Bauhaus, manuscript of January 25, 1916, p. 23.
66. Ibid.
67. Ibid., pp. 23–24.
68. Ibid., p. 24.
69. Ibid., pp. 24, 23.
70. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 49; AG to WG, March 1916.
71. Ibid.
72. Ibid., p. 77; AG to WG, Summer 1916.
73. Ibid., p. 51.
74. Ibid.; AG to WG, August 1916.
75. http://thenonist.com/index.php/thenonist/permalink/oscar_and_the_alma_doll/.
76. Ibid.
77. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 52.
78. Ibid., p. 52; WG to MG, October 16, 1916.
79. Mahler Werfel, And the Bridge, p. 89.
80. Ibid., pp. 89–90.
81. Ibid., p. 91.
82. Ibid., p. 96.
83. Ibid., pp. 97–98.
84. Ibid., p. 98.
85. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 15; WG to MG, March 26, 1917.
86. Ibid.; WG to MG, Schloss Flawinne near Nemurs, June 17, 1917.
87. Ibid.; WG to MG, August 1917.
88. Ibid., p. 54; WG to Karl Ernst Osthaus (KEO), December 19, 1917.
89. Ibid.; WG to MG, January 7, 1918.
90. Ibid.
91. Ibid., pp. 55–56; WG to MG, June 11, 1918.
92. Ibid., p. 57; WG to Richard Meyer, July 6, 191.
93. Ibid., p. 58; WG to MG, August 17, 1918.
94. Mahler Werfel, And the Bridge, pp. 120–21.
95. Ibid., p. 122; Giroud, Alma Mahler, p. 124.
96. Giroud, Alma Mahler, p. 125.
97. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 63; WG to KEO, December 29, 1918.
98. Ibid.; WG to MG, Berlin, January 1919.
99. Ibid., p. 64.
100. Wingler, Bauhaus, p. 26.
101. Ibid.
102. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 67; WG to MG, March 31, 1919.
103. Wingler, Bauhaus, p. 31.
104. Ibid.
105. Giroud, Alma Mahler, p. 127.
106. Mahler Werfel, And the Bridge, p. 133.
107. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 319 n. 48.
108. Ibid., p. 79; Lyonel Feininger to his wife, May 30, 1919.
109. Feininger letters, The Lyonel Feininger Archive, Harvard Art Museum Archives, Morgan Center, Harvard Art Museum/ Busch-Reisinger
Museum.
110. Julia Feininger to Lyonel Feininger, May 26, 1919, Feininger Archive.
111. Lyonel Feininger to Julia Feininger, May 20 and May 28, 1949, Feininger Archive.
112. Julia Feininger to Lyonel Feininger, May 31, 1919, Feininger Archive.
113. Mahler Werfel, And the Bridge, p. 134.
114. Lyonel Feininger to Julia Feininger, June 7, 1919, Feininger Archive.
115. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 81; WG to MG, June 14, 1919.
116. Ibid.; WG to AM, July 12, 1919.
117. Ibid.
118. Ibid.
119. Ibid., p. 82; WG to AM, July 18, 1919.
120. Ibid.
121. Ibid.
122. Wingler, Bauhaus, p. 36.
123. Ibid.
124. Ibid.
125. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 82; FW to WG, August 29, 1919.
126. Ibid.; AMG to WG, September 1919.
127. Ibid., p. 83; WG to Lily Hildebrandt (LH), October 14, 1919.
128. Ibid.; WG to LH, October 15, 1919.
129. Ibid., p. 85; WG to LH, November 1919.
130. Ibid.; WG to LH, December 13, 1919.
131. Ibid., p. 86; WG to LH, December 1919.
132. Ibid.; WG to MG, undated, probably 1919, just after Christmas.
133. Ibid.; WG to LH, February 1, 1920.
134. Wingler, Bauhaus, p. 37.
135. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 87; AMG to WG, undated, from Vienna, probably early December 1919.
136. Ibid., p. 88; WG to unnamed “young widow,” April 19, 1920.
137. Ibid.
138. Ibid., p. 90; WG to LH, undated.
139. Tut Schlemmer, ed., The Letters and Diaries of Oskar Schlemmer (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1990), p. 90.
140. Mahler Werfel, And the Bridge, p. 142.
141. Ibid., p. 143.
142. Isaacs, Gropius, pp. 92–93; WG to LH, late spring 1921.
143. Wingler, Bauhaus, pp. 51–52.
144. AM to the Feiningers, July 3, 1922, Houghton Library, Harvard University, 6MS Ger 146 (1423).
145. Lyonel Feininger to Julia Feininger, September 7, 1922, Feininger Archive.
146. Mahler Werfel, And the Bridge, p. 142.
147. Wingler, Bauhaus, p. 64.
148. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 105; WG to Ilse Frank, undated.
149. Ibid.
150. Walter Gropius, “Statement on Haus on Horn,” 1923.
151. Ibid.
152. Herbert Bayer, Walter Gropius, and Ise Gropius, eds., Bauhaus, 1919–1928 (Boston: C. T. Branford, 1952), p. 93.
153. Igor Stravinsky, An Autobiography (New York: M & S Steven, 1958), p. 107.
154. Ibid., p. 108.
155. Ibid.
156. Stephen Walsh, Stravinsky: A Creative Spring(New York: Knopf, 1999), p. 370.
157. Ibid.
158. Bayer, Gropius, and Gropius, Bauhaus, p. 91.
159. Ibid.
160. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 109.
161. Wingler, Bauhaus, p. 76.
162. Ibid.
163. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 111.
164. Wingler, Bauhaus, p. 84.
165. Ibid., p. 86.
166. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 113.
167. Ibid., p. 115.
168. Ibid., p. 116.
169. Wingler, Bauhaus, p. 89.
170. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 117.
171. Wingler, Bauhaus, p. 109.
172. Ibid., p. 110.
173. Ibid.
174. Ibid., p. 125.
175. Ibid.
176. Ibid.
177. Ibid., p. 127.
178. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 135; WG to Wassily Kandinsky, February 1927.
179. Ibid., p. 137.
180. Ibid., p. 139.
181. Ibid.
182. Christian Walsdorf, at the Bauhaus-Archiv in Berlin, generously supplied this information.
183. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 141.
184. Wingler, Bauhaus, p. 136.
185. Ibid.
186. Isaacs, Gropius, p. 141.
187. Ibid., p. 145.
188. Ibid., pp. 148–49.
189. Ibid., p. 321.
190. Malcolm Ticknor, introduction to the Huntington Gallery project, Huntington, WV, 1967, in The Walter Gropius Archive: An Illustrated Catalogue of the Drawings, Prints, and Photographs in the Walter Gropius Archive at the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University, Vol. 4: 1945–1969: The Works of The Architects Collaborative, ed. John C. Harness (New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1991), p. 479.
PAUL KLEE
1. The Diaries of Paul Klee, ed. and intro. Felix Klee (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964), p. 419.
2. Ibid., p. 377.
3. Jankel Adler, “Memories of Paul Klee,” in The Golden Horizon, ed. Cyril Connolly (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1953), p. 38.
4. Ibid.
5. Prince Myshkin speaking in Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s The Idiot, trans. David McDuff (London: Penguin Classics, 2004), p. 639.
6. Ibid., p. 645.
7. Diaries of Paul Klee, p. 4.
8. Marta Schneider Brody, “Paul Klee in the Wizard’s Kitchen,” Psychoanalytic Review 91 (2004): 487.
9. Marta Schneider Brody, “Who Is Anna Wenne? Gender Play Within Art’s Potential Space,” Psychoanalytic Review 89 (2002): 486.
10. Ibid., p. 410.
11. Diaries of Paul Klee, p. 4.
12. Ibid., pp. 4–5.
13. Ibid., pp. 10–11.
14. Ibid., pp. 23–24.
15. Ibid., p. 33.
16. Ibid., p. 34.
17. Ibid., p. 35.
18. Ibid., p. 36.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., p. 38.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid., p. 39.
23. Ibid., pp. 40–41.
24. Ibid., p. 41.
25. Ibid., p. 43.
26. Ibid.
27. Ibid., p. 45.
28. Will Grohmann, Paul Klee (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1967), p. 31.
29. John Richardson, “A Cache of Klee,” Vanity Fair, February 1987, p. 83.
30. Grohmann, Klee, p. 53.
31. Ibid., p. 57.
32. Tut Schlemmer, ed., The Letters and Diaries of Oskar Schlemmer (Evanston, Ill.: Northwestern University Press, 1990), p. 41.
33. Ibid.
34. Ibid., p. 96.
35. Marcel Franciscono, Paul Klee: His Work and Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), p. 242.
36. Ibid., p. 241.
37. Adler, “Memories,” p. 266.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. Franciscono, Paul Klee, p. 241.
41. Ibid.
42. O. K. Werckmeister, The Making of Paul Klee’s Career, 1914–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), p. 226.
43. Grohmann, Klee, pp. 62–63.
44. Stefan Tolksdorf, Der Klang der Dinge: Paul Klee—Ein Leben (Freiburg: Herder, 2004), p. 140; translation by Jessica Csoma.
45. Paul Klee, Lettres du Bauhaus, trans. into French by Anne-Sophie Petit-Emptaz (Tours: Farrago, 2004), p. 22.
46. Frank Whitford, ed., The Bauhaus: Master and Students by Themselves (Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1993), p. 54.
47. Klee, Lettres, p. 27.
48. Transcript of Felix Klee’s interview with Ludwig Grote, March 26, 1972, Klee Archive, Bern.
49. Ibid.
50. Klee, Lettres, p. 29.
51. Ibid., p. 34.
52. Ibid.
53. Rainer Maria Rilke et Merline: Correspondance, 1920–1926, ed. Dieter Bassermann (Zurich: Insel Verlag, 1954), p. 224.
54. Klee, Lettres, p. 38.
55. Whitford, Bauhaus, p. 62.
56. Klee, Lettres, p. 35.
57. Whitford, Bauhaus, p. 70.
58. Ibid.
59. Ibid.
60. Ibid.
61. Ibid., pp. 70–71.
62. Ibid., p. 71.
63. Ibid., p. 72.
64. Grohmann, Klee, p. 68.
66. Klee, Lettres, p. 39.
67. Richardson, “Cache of Klee,” p. 83.
68. Klee, Lettres, p. 40.
69. Ibid., pp. 40–41.
70. Ibid.
71. Grohmann, Klee, p. 69.
72. Tagebücher von Paul Klee, 1898–1918 (Cologne: M. Dumont Schauberg, 1957), p. 416; translation by Oliver Pretzel.
73. Felix Klee, Reflections on My Father, Klee, catalogue for exhibition at Foundation Pierre Gianadda Martigny, 1985.
74. Ibid.
75. Ibid.
76. Klee, Lettres, p. 489.
77. Ibid., p 253.
78. Felix Klee, introduction to Pierre von Allmen, Paul Klee: Puppets, Sculptures, Reliefs, Masks, Theatre (Neuchátel: Editions Galeries Suisse de Paris, 1979), p. 19.
79. Grohmann, Klee, p. 54.
80. Lothar Schreyer, quoted in Whitford, Bauhaus, p. 120.
81. Felix Klee, introduction to Allmen, Paul Klee, pp. 19–21.
82. Klee, Lettres, p. 49.
83. Grohmann, Klee, p. 64.
84. Hans M. Wingler, The Bauhaus: Weimar, Dessau, Berlin, Chicago, ed. Joseph Stein, trans. Wolfgang Jabs and Basil Gilbert (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1969), p. 54.
85. Whitford, Bauhaus, p. 121.
86. Brody, “Who Is Anna Wenne?,” p. 497.
87. Ibid., p. 496.
88. Ibid., p. 489.
89. Ibid., p. 493.
90. Ibid., p. 494.
91. Ibid., pp. 494–95.
92. Ibid., p. 499.
93. Grohmann, Klee, p. 377.
94. Brody, “Who Is Anna Wenne?,” p. 499.
95. Tolksdorf, Der Klang der Dinge, p. 164; translation by Jessica Csoma.
96. Marta Schneider Brody, “Paul Klee: Art, Potential Space and the Transitional Process,” The Psychoanalytic Review 88 (2001): 369.
97. Wilhelm Uhde, “Quelques opinions sur Klee,” in Les Arts Plastiques, vol. 7 (1930); translation by Philippe Corfa.
98. Klee, Lettres, p. 65.
99. Jürg Spiller, ed., Paul Klee Notebooks, vol. 2: The Nature of Nature (London: Lund Humphries, 1973), p. 6.
100. Ibid., p. 25.
101. Ibid., p. 29.
102. Ibid.
103. Ibid., p. 31.
104. Ibid.
105. Ibid.
106. Ibid., p. 35.
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