Xanti Schawinsky

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Xanti Schawinsky (actually Alexander Schawinsky; born March 25, 1904 in Basel ; † September 11, 1979 in Locarno ) was a Swiss-American painter, photographer and set designer. He belonged to the Bauhaus circle around Walter Gropius .

Life

The typewriter Studio 42 by Olivetti

Alexander Schawinsky was the second child of the businessman Benjamin Schawinsky and Regina, born Bielawska, both of Jewish origin. He attended school in Basel from 1910 to 1914 and then from 1915 to 1921 a grammar school in Zurich . He then worked as a trainee in Theodor Merill's architecture office in Cologne until 1923 . After briefly attending the Berlin School of Applied Arts in 1923 , he went to the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1924 . Here were Paul Klee , Wassily Kandinsky , Adolf Meyer and László Moholy-Nagyto his teachers. In the stage department headed by Oskar Schlemmer he developed skits, pantomimes and showed his first stage work.

When the Bauhaus in Weimar closed in 1925, Schawinsky went with them to Dessau . There Schawinsky mainly dealt with experimental photography . He played the saxophone in the student Bauhaus band . From 1926 to 1927 he designed some stage sets in Zwickau , then taught stage design at the Bauhaus as Schlemmer's assistant and devoted himself intensively to painting. In 1927 he was one of the exhibitors at the German Theater Exhibition in Magdeburg .

Schawinsky was close friends with Herbert Bayer and Marcel Breuer . He became the godfather of Julia Bayer, the daughter of Herbert and Irene Bayer, born in 1929.

In 1929 he was brought to Magdeburg by Johannes Göderitz as head of the graphics department of the municipal building department. During this time he also took over the picture editing of the theater newspaper "Das Keyword". Due to political and racist hostility, he left Magdeburg at the end of 1931 and went to Berlin as a freelance artist. After the handover of power to the National Socialists , he emigrated to Italy , where he took up painting again in Rapallo . From the end of 1933 he worked for the “Studio Boggeri” in Milan and worked as a freelance graphic artist a. a. for the companies Illy Caffè , Cinzano and Motta . As co-designer at Olivetti , he took on the design of a new semi-professional typewriter, which was named “Studio 42”. He also consulted the architects Fingini & Pollini, who were building the new company headquarters for Olivetti, about the design.

Xanti Schawinsky was brought to Black Mountain College in the USA by Josef Albers in 1936 . The Museum of Modern Art in New York exhibited works by Schawinsky. He designed the North Carolina Pavilion at the 1939 New York World's Fair and the Pennsylvania Pavilion with Breuer and Gropius . In 1941 he moved to New York, taught from 1943 to 1946 at the City College of New York and from 1950 to 1954 at New York University , where from 1950 he mainly worked as a painter in abstract forms.

From 1961 onwards, Schawinsky regularly stayed in Europe for longer periods of time , built a second home in Oggebbio on Lake Maggiore and exhibited again in Germany. In 1971, the moma in New York presented a film about Schawinsky and his work, and in 1981 Hans Heinz Holz published a monograph.

Schawinsky was married to Irene von Debschitz (1903–1990), the daughter of Wanda von Debschitz-Kunowski , in his first marriage since 1936 ; their son Ben was born in 1939. From 1963 he was married to Gisela Hatzky for the second time, they had their son Daniel in 1973.

Honor

The city of Magdeburg named the Schawinskyweg in his honor .

Writings, exhibitions (selection)

  • Xanti Schawinsky: metamorphosis bauhaus. In: Eckhard Neumann (ed.): Bauhaus and Bauhäusler: Memories and Confessions . New edition 1985, Cologne: DuMont, 1996 ISBN 3-7701-1673-9 , pp. 215-222
  • Peter Hahn , Barbara Paul: Xanti Schawinsky: painting, stage, graphic design, photography . [Exhibition Bauhaus Archive, Berlin, March 22 - May 19, 1986]. Berlin: Nicolai 1986
  • Eckhard Neumann , Roger Schmid (conception): Xanti Schawinsky Photo . Exhibition. Bern: Bentelli, 1989 ISBN 3-7165-0667-2

literature

  • Schawinsky, Alexander (Xanti) . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists of the XX. Century. tape 4 : Q-U . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1958, p. 177 .
  • Schawinsky, Xanti (Alexander). In: Werner Röder; Herbert A. Strauss , (Ed.), International Biographical Dictionary of Central European Emigrés 1933-1945 , Vol II, Part 2 Munich: Saur 1983 ISBN 3-598-10089-2 , p. 1025 f
  • Siegward Hofmann: Schawinsky, Alexander. In: Guido Heinrich, Gunter Schandera (ed.): Magdeburg Biographical Lexicon 19th and 20th centuries. Biographical lexicon for the state capital Magdeburg and the districts of Bördekreis, Jerichower Land, Ohrekreis and Schönebeck. Scriptum, Magdeburg 2002, ISBN 3-933046-49-1 ( article online ).
  • Schawinski, Alexander. In: German Biographical Encyclopedia , 2007, Volume 8, p. 780
  • Jürgen Bartz: Schawinsky, Xanti . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 101, de Gruyter, Berlin 2018, ISBN 978-3-11-023267-7 , p. 398 f.
  • Andreas Krase: Photography for the New Magdeburg. Xanti Schawinsky 1929-1931 . In: Christian Antz u. a. (Ed.): New Building New Life. The 20s in Magdeburg, Berlin: Deutscher Kunstverlag 2018, ISBN 978-3-422-92628-8 , pp. 160–177.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Barbara Paul: Biography. In: Peter Hahn, Barbara Paul: Xanti Schawinsky: Painting, Stage, Graphic Design, Photography , 1986, pp. 9–28
  2. ↑ a b c d Eckhard Neumann (ed.): Bauhaus and Bauhäusler: Memories and Confessions . Extended new edition 1985, Cologne: DuMont, 1996 ISBN 3-7701-1673-9 , p. 213f
  3. ↑ Antonio Boggeri see it: Antonio Boggeri
personal data
SURNAME Schawinsky, Xanti
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schawinsky, Alexander (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss-American painter, photographer and set designer
DATE OF BIRTH March 25, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Basel
DATE OF DEATH September 11, 1979
Place of death Locarno