Roy Lichtenstein

Founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar, Germany, in 1919, the Bauhaus school was devoted to uniting the fine and applied arts—a pedagogic vision that resonates with Lichtenstein’s intermingling of “high” and “low.” Schlemmer—who taught mural painting, stage design, and sculpture there—painted Bauhaustreppe shortly before the school’s 1933 closure by the Nazis. Alfred H. Barr, inaugural director of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, saw Schlemmer’s painting in an exhibition at the Württemberg Art Society, Stuttgart, and, when the show was shut down after its condemnation in a Nazi newspaper, persuaded Philip Johnson to purchase the work for MoMA’s collection.

With its imagery of modernist architecture, Schlemmer’s canvas—inspired by a photograph by fellow instructor T. Lux Feininger—represents the Bauhaus’s aspiration and achievement. The image of the banister expresses stability and direction in a chaotic period, while the geometric bodies of the students reflect Schlemmer’s belief in humanity as “an organic as well as mechanical creation.” The figures in the lower right-hand corner and upper left-hand corner of Lichtenstein’s mural appear to reference Schlemmer’s costume designs and volumetric renderings, as well as Schlemmer’s interest in mechanical movement. Lichtenstein pays tribute to the German artist’s vision through a Pop aesthetic, using his own distinctive visual language to convey the Bauhaus’s innovative spirit. Finally, both Schlemmer’s painting and Lichtenstein’s mural, through their depiction of a bustling common space primed for dialogue, collaborative effort, and upward movement, speak to a Gesamtkunstwerk, or total work of art, in which artists, designers, and artisans work together toward a single higher goal—an ethos that continuously guided the founders of CAA.

The new installation coincides with Lichtenstein Remembered at Gagosian, 980 Madison Avenue, New York (September 9–October 21), an exhibition of sculptures and studies curated by Irving Blum in recognition of the centenary of the artist’s birth.