Lothar Schreyer (1886 in Blasewitz – 1966 in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

) was a German artist, writer, editor, stage designer and gallery owner. He was the first Master of the stagecraft workshop at the

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the , was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined Decorative arts, crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., ...

art school.Bauhaus100. Workshops. Stagecraft
Retrieved 6 December 2018

Life and work

Schreyer was born in Blasewitz in 1886. He studied art history at

University of Heidelberg Heidelberg University, officially the Ruprecht Karl University of Heidelberg (; ), is a public university, public research university in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany. Founded in 1386 on instruction of Pope Urban VI, Heidelberg is List ...

and then law at universities in Berlin and Leipzig. In 1910 he graduated in literary and artistic copyright law.Bauhaus100. Lothar Schreyer
Retrieved 6 December 2018 From 1911 to 1918, he worked as a

dramaturge A dramaturge or dramaturg (from Ancient Greek δραματουργός – dramatourgós) is a literary adviser or editor in a theatre, opera, or film company who researches, selects, adapts, edits, and interprets scripts, libretti, texts, and pr ...

and assistant director at the

Deutsches Schauspielhaus The Deutsches Schauspielhaus, sometimes referred to as the Hamburg Schauspielhaus or Hamburg Theatre, is a theatre in the St. Georg, Hamburg, St. Georg quarter of the city of Hamburg, Germany History The Deutsches Schauspielhaus was co-foun ...

and from 1916 until 1928 he was the editor of

Der Sturm ''Der Sturm'' () was a German List of avant-garde magazines, avant-garde art and literary magazine founded by Herwarth Walden, covering Expressionism, Cubism, Dada and Surrealism, among other artistic movements. It was published between 1910 a ...

magazine, owned by

Herwarth Walden Herwarth Walden (actual name Georg Lewin; 16 September 1879 – 31 October 1941) was a German expressionist artist and art expert in many disciplines. He is broadly acknowledged as one of the most important discoverers and promoters of German av ...

, with whom he became a close collaborator on several projects. At the same time, he also taught at the ''Sturm-Schule für Bühnenkunst und Pantomime'' ('Sturm school of stagecraft and pantomime') until 1924. In 1918 Scheyer and Walden founded the ''Sturmbühne'', an expressionist theatre. Schreyer’s first plays Kreuzigung (Crucifixion) and Kindssterben (Death of a Child) were performed during his tenure as director there. Scheyer left the theatre in 1921.Toepfer, Karl (1997
Walter Holdt and Lavinia Schulz
in ''Empire of Ecstasy: Nudity and Movement in German Body Culture, 1910–1935''. Berkeley: University of California Press. Retrieved 6 December 2018 In 1921

Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (; 18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-born American architect and founder of the Bauhaus, Bauhaus School, who is widely regarded as one of the pioneering masters of modernist architecture. He was a founder of ...

, director of the Bauhaus in Weimar, invited him to lead school's stagecraft workshop. Gropius established the workshop to explore theatrical methods, as he saw similarities between building and stage work. Students from all departments were encouraged to participate. Scheyer, like fellow teachers

Johannes Itten Johannes Itten (11 November 1888 – 25 March 1967) was a Swiss expressionist painter, designer, teacher, writer and theorist associated with the Bauhaus (''Staatliches Bauhaus'') school. Together with German-American painter Lyonel Feining ...

and Gertrud Grunow, was regarded as one of the Bauhaus 'esoterics', as opposed to the more technically-minded Gropius.Bauhaus100.Curriculum. Harmonisation theory 1919-1924
Retrieved 2 December 2018 He was experimental and concealed his players behind geometric full-body masks to explore the language of form. However, his plays such as ''Mondspiel'' (Moon Play) and ''Kreuzigung'' (Crucifixion) were not well received at the school and he left in 1923. He was succeeded by

Oskar Schlemmer Oskar Schlemmer (; 4 September 1888 – 13 April 1943) was a German painter, sculptor, designer and choreographer associated with the Bauhaus school. In 1923, he was hired as Master of Form at the Bauhaus theatre workshop, after working at the ...

. From 1924 to 1927, he was a teacher at the Berlin art school 'Der Weg'. From 1928 to 1931, he was head editor of the publishing house ''Hanseatische Verlagsanstalt''. In 1933 he converted to

Catholicism The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

. During the 1930s, he was concerned with Christian mysticism and folk ideas, and ultimately the

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

ideology. He was one of 88 German writers who signed the Gelöbnis treuester Gefolgschaft, a 1933 public declaration of faithful allegiance to

Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...

.88 "writers"
in ''Letters of Heinrich and Thomas Mann, 1900-1949''. (vol. 12) ''Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism''. University of California Press, 1998 , p. 367-8 This did not stop his work being classified by the Nazis as degenerate art. It was shown in the 1937

Degenerate Art Exhibition The Degenerate Art exhibition () was an art exhibition organized by Adolf Ziegler and the Nazi Party in Munich from 19 July to 30 November 1937. The exhibition presented 650 works of art, confiscated from German museums, and was staged in count ...

(German: ''Die Ausstellung "Entartete Kunst"'') in Munich.

Collections

Amongst other public collections, Schreyer's art work is held by: *

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum). LACMA was founded in 1961 ...

(LACMA) *

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

(MoMA), New York *

New York Public Library The New York Public Library (NYPL) is a public library system in New York City. With nearly 53 million items and 92 locations, the New York Public Library is the second-largest public library in the United States behind the Library of Congress a ...

New York Public Library Digital Collections. Kreuzigung Spielwerk VII
Retrieved 7 December 2018

Bibliography

*Schreyer, Lothar; Keith-Smith, Brian (ed.) (2001, 3rd ed
''Theateraufsätze''
New York: Edwin Mellen Press

References

External links

Bauhaus100. Workshops. StagecraftBauhaus100. Lothar Schreyer
''Artnet'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Schreyer, Lothar German artists Academic staff of the Bauhaus 1886 births 1966 deaths Converts to Roman Catholicism