Bauhaus (Canada) 101

February 13 - March 27, 2020 (Closed as of March 18)

Curated by Dr. Oliver A. I. Botar

A good number of Canadians studied under the former Bauhaus directors Walter Gropius and Ludwig Mies van Der Rohe, and important Bauhaus pedagogues such as Marcel Breuer, László Moholy-Nagy, Josef Albers and György Kepes, all of whom had settled in the Unites States just before WWII. These Canadian students then brought Bauhaus ideas back with them to Canada, and to the University of Manitoba School of Architecture in particular. This show demonstrates that it was mainly via the University of Manitoba that Bauhaus architectural and pedagogical concepts spread throughout Canada.
But there were direct influences as well. Three Bauhaus alumni settled in Canada, including David Feist, a photographer and graphic designer best known for his Bick’s Pickles logo and ad campaign, and artist Andor Weininger, a key figure in the social life of the original Bauhaus. Breuer built a cottage near Lake of the Woods and a factory in Oakville, Ontario. Mies designed three major developments in Toronto and Montreal, largely due to the influence of Montrealer and Mies-student Phyllis Lambert, founder of the Canadian Centre for Architecture.

Canada’s pre-eminent landscape architect Cornelia Oberlander and Blanche Lemco van Ginkel, the first woman in Canada to act as Dean of Architecture (at the University of Toronto), were among the first women to graduate from the Harvard School of Design, both studying with Gropius. A number of Canadians studied at Moholy-Nagy’s Institute of Design in Chicago and returned to Canada to transform childrens’ art education.
This exhibition reveals how Canada’s important Métis architects Étienne Gaboury and Douglas Cardinal were inspired by Bauhaus ideals early in their careers. Similarly, a prominent Indigenous artist such as Alex Janvier readily acknowledges the effect that the Bauhaus professor Wassily Kandinsky had on his practice, while the Structurist artists of the Prairies, students of Eli Bornstein of the University of Saskatchewan, were partly rooted in Bauhaus aesthetics.

Like Canada itself, the Bauhaus was an institution that displayed a surprising diversity of peoples, practices and styles, and the exhibition highlights these parallels and influences.

A BAUHAUSLER IN CANADA: Andor Weininger in the 50s
by Oliver A.I. Botar
$40.00
Available at the University of Manitoba Bookstore

Published by Gallery One One One and The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, Oshawa (280 pages, in full colour, with over 370 illustrations.)

Events

Tour with Curator
February 14, 1:00 – 2:00 pm

Tour with Education Coordinator
February 26, 12:15 – 12:35 pm

Keynote lecture by Dr. Elizabeth Otto
February 28, 7 - 9 pm
Mentoring Artists for Women's Art, 611 Main Street

Image: Henry Kalen, Courtyard of the Russell Building, ca. 1960 (Russell Building, 84 Curry Place, Winnipeg, 1958-59. Smith, Carter, Katelnikoff. Ernest Smith, Partner in Charge. A. J. Donahue, Principle Designer with Douglas Gillmor. Grant Marshall, Interior Design) Courtesy of the University of Manitoba Archives & Special Collections