Erich Fuchs: You´re not fool­ing me, just your­self.

Address at the open­ing recep­tion of the Willi Baumeis­ter Stu­dent Exhi­bi­tion in Wup­per­tal on March 1, 1969. Erich Fuchs (1916 to 1990) was him­self on the Stuttgart Acad­e­my fac­ul­ty between 1949 and 1958. He attend­ed Baumeis­ter’s class from 1946 to 1947.

Twen­ty years ago, a Baumeis­ter stu­dent exhi­bi­tion took place in Wup­per­tal because Willi Baumeis­ter did not suc­ceed in receiv­ing an exhi­bi­tion for his stu­dents in Stuttgart. Today is the open­ing of the sec­ond Baumeis­ter stu­dent exhi­bi­tion, like­wise here in Wup­per­tal. This exhi­bi­tion should final­ly, 15 years after Willi Baumeis­ter’s death, refer very clear­ly to the achieve­ments and the results of his school. Willi Baumeis­ter’s influ­ence and his activ­i­ty in the post­war years, in the for­ties and fifties, are so impor­tant and stand out like the Bauhaus in the 1920s. The cur­rent exhi­bi­tion is due to the size of the exhi­bi­tion space and the num­ber of par­tic­i­pants, there are 48, the first actu­al report and overview of a school that once was much dis­cussed and con­test­ed. In 1946 the Stuttgart Acad­e­my was opened by the Cul­tur­al Min­istry. What was this acad­e­my like?

At the time we had the great oppor­tu­ni­ty to call back the degen­er­ate, the per­se­cut­ed; this would have been a real response to the Hitler peri­od, but it turned out dif­fer­ent­ly. Was it stu­pid­i­ty or intent – stu­pid­i­ty because the min­is­ter of cul­ture per­haps regard­ed the devel­op­ment abroad and the devel­op­ment in Ger­many before the Hitler peri­od as degen­er­a­tion – or was it inten­tion­al? Was mod­ernism only to be tol­er­at­ed in order to be – like an unus­able freight car – uncou­pled at any time?

Willi Baumeis­ter was iso­lat­ed with­in the acad­e­my – he was exposed to con­tin­u­al attacks – stu­dents from oth­er class­es who want­ed to attend Baumeis­ter’s were threat­ened by their pro­fes­sors with refusals of review­ing. All of Willi Baumeis­ter’s sug­ges­tions and pro­pos­als to restruc­ture the Stuttgart Acad­e­my in a con­tem­po­rary way were turned down with an incom­pre­hen­si­ble vehe­mence. Even though because of him the Stuttgart Acad­e­my was con­sid­ered the most mod­ern school in Ger­many. (fn 1: In 1947 a series of mod­ern art was shown by Dr. Dom­nick in Stuttgart, in which Baumeis­ter stood out as exem­plary of Ger­man mod­ern paint­ing. In 1948 at the Paris “Salon des Real­ités Nou­velles (Salon of New Real­i­ties)”, Willi Baumeis­ter rep­re­sent­ed the pin­na­cle of Ger­man non­rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al painters. Her­bert Her­rmann gallery pro­mot­ed his work. Through Baumeis­ter Stuttgart became a reser­voir of con­tem­po­rary art. His stu­dio over­flowed with vis­i­tors from all over the world. His book “The Unknown in Art” was pub­lished.)

His adver­saries at the acad­e­my were of the opin­ion that a teacher should know what art is. Willi Baumeis­ter’s view was –

He said: you can­not dis­cuss with ped­a­gogues, since they are always right. His goal was that the stu­dent should acquire a foun­da­tion –

Willi Baumeis­ter’s teach­ing was set up on a broad basis. The stu­dent was to remain in the sketch­ing stage as long as pos­si­ble and con­tin­u­al­ly cor­rect them­selves. Baumeis­ter might add with tongue in cheek – “don’t cheat. You’re not fool­ing me, just your­self.”

Baumeis­ter’s class grew very quick­ly. Willi Baumeis­ter’s wish to have his own pre­lim­i­nary class was turned down. Where­as the author­i­ties, the Min­istry and the Sen­ate stuck to their old ideas, just a few years after the war, the indus­try began to change its opin­ion about mod­ern art, and cor­rect­ed it. The influ­ence of Willi Baumeis­ter’s school made itself felt and began to assert itself. The indus­try endeav­ored, in the form of com­pe­ti­tions and com­mis­sions, to take on new impuls­es. (fn. 2: In 1949 there was a col­lec­tive [sic] exhi­bi­tion of Willi Baumeis­ter works in Paris at the Galérie Buch­er. In 1950 Willi Baumeis­ter defend­ed mod­ern art against [Wil­helm] Hausen­stein and [Hans] Sedl­mayr. In the same year at a gath­er­ing in Munich, a rep­re­sen­ta­tive of state called him a bul­lock- Le Matin in Paris wrote about it on May 28, 1950.

In 1952 John Antho­ny Thwait­es wrote in the Munich Neue Zeitung: “mod­ern cours­es at the Stuttgart Acad­e­my are con­strict­ed and can­not devel­op fur­ther – the old Bauhaus con­sist­ed not just of tech­ni­cians and archi­tects, it con­sist­ed of Klee and Kandin­sky, Schlem­mer, and Feininger. In Stuttgart, how­ev­er, Baumeis­ter is forced into the school’s ver­ti­cal struc­ture.” He added: “[Is it any won­der] that the Stuttgart Acad­e­my and the works it exhibits cor­re­spond to around 1900 and he asks where this unworld­ly rigid­i­ty comes from?” Dur­ing this time, Willi Baumeis­ter said to me – “I will be glad when I get out of here, I have only trou­ble with the acad­e­my; I am hap­py every time when I am back in my ruins and can paint.”

In 1954 on his 65th birth­day, there was a group exhi­bi­tion in the Stuttgart Kun­st­ge­bäude – Franz Roh called this jubilee show a tri­umph for non­rep­re­sen­ta­tion­al paint­ing. The min­istry and the sen­ate of the acad­e­my were glad to final­ly send off a dif­fi­cult spir­it to the retire­ment bench. His teach­ing activ­i­ty was not extend­ed. His class was dis­solved. Willi Baumeis­ter was placed on the casu­al­ty list. A few years lat­er the rec­tor’s office can­celled my teach­ing con­tract with the com­ment that I was too much of an artist. Last year, on Feb­ru­ary 13, 1968, the sen­ate wrote to the Stuttgart news­pa­per with the head­line, “The Sen­ate Responds”, on the occa­sion of a con­flict with the stu­dents at the Stuttgart Acad­e­my: “the sen­ate would inci­den­tal­ly be grate­ful if some­one could draw its atten­tion to artists of Willi Baumeis­ter’s cal­iber.”

For months we have been star­tled by the agi­ta­tion of the youth. If the youth now dis­miss­es us with a wave of the hand, it is because of our neglect to have offered them a path. Old mod­els, recipes, the­o­ries stand in con­flict with cur­rent life. I have there­fore shown you the path of a man who tried to forge new pos­si­bil­i­ties and ways in Stuttgart and failed to real­ize his ideas on a larg­er scale because of the state’s stu­pid­i­ty. Willi Baumeis­ter said:

On his 80th birth­day we thank him for what we learned from him. The good speaks for itself!”

(Type­script, quot­ed from Ker­mer 1992, p. 179 ff.)