Symposium—Bauhaus 100: Object Lessons from a Historic Collection

Talk: Color Wheels and the Bauhaus Science of Design with Melissa Venator, Stefan Engelhorn Curatorial Fellow in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard Art Museums

This symposium is presented in conjunction with the special exhibition “The Bauhaus and Harvard,” on view from February 8 to July 28, 2019. Founded in 1919 in Weimar, Germany, the Bauhaus was the 20th century’s most influential school of art, architecture, and design. A century later, we continue to learn from the rich trove of student exercises, iconic design objects, photographs, textiles, typography, paintings, and archival materials in the Busch-Reisinger Museum’s extensive Bauhaus collection. Join us as leading and emerging scholars share new research on these objects and related works in Harvard collections. Explore more about the Bauhaus centenary at https://www.bauhaus100.com.

Speaker: Melissa Venator is the 2016–19 Stefan Engelhorn Curatorial Fellow in the Busch-Reisinger Museum. In addition to her work on the Busch-Reisinger’s historic Bauhaus collection, she curated an exhibition of the industrial art of New Objectivity artist Carl Grossberg and catalogued the Busch-Reisinger’s extensive holdings of photographs by Lucia Moholy. Her publications include the first English-language monograph on Grossberg (2018) and essays on the intersection of art and technology. She curated the 2019 exhibition Hans Arp’s Constellations II at the Harvard Art Museums.

Support for this symposium is provided by the M. Victor Leventritt Fund, which was established through the generosity of the wife, children, and friends of the late M. Victor Leventritt, Harvard Class of 1935. The purpose of the fund is to present outstanding scholars of the history and theory of art to the Harvard and Greater Boston communities.Support for the Bauhaus exhibition is provided by endowed funds, including the Daimler Curatorship of the Busch-Reisinger Museum Fund, the Charles L. Kuhn Endowment Fund, and the Care of the Busch-Reisinger Museum Collection Fund. In addition, exhibition-related programming is made possible by the M. Victor Leventritt Fund, which was established through the generosity of the wife, children, and friends of the late M. Victor Leventritt, Harvard Class of 1935. Modern and contemporary art programs at the Harvard Art Museums are made possible in part by generous support from the Emily Rauh Pulitzer and Joseph Pulitzer, Jr., Fund for Modern and Contemporary Art.

Friday, March 29, 2019, Menschel Hall, Harvard Art Museums.