Max Peiffer Watenphul. Painter of the Bauhaus

Curated by Gregor H. Lersch and organised in collaboration with the Fondazione Max Peiffer Watenphul ETS and the Museo Casa di Goethe (with the support of the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung in Berlin, under the patronage of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany), the exhibition at the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea is dedicated to a central yet still relatively little-explored figure of twentieth-century European art.

Born in 1896 in Weferlingen, between 1919 and 1922 Peiffer Watenphul trained at the Bauhaus in Weimar, the legendary interdisciplinary art school that triggered an irreversible process of renewal and a new wave of creativity. It was here that he shaped his visual language and forged a dense network of relationships with the great masters of modernity, including Paul Klee, with whom he established a close personal and professional bond. Within the avant-garde movements, however, the artist developed an independent and original path, maintaining painting as his primary field of exploration whilst experimenting with various media, from tapestry to photography. His work thus reflects to a personal and figurative interpretation of the Bauhaus experience, grounded in a constant attention to colour, composition and landscape.

Organised across five rooms and following a chronological and thematic structure, the around 80 works on display (paintings, watercolours and photographs, accompanied by letters and archival materials) highlight the full scope of his output, emphasising the consistency and evolution of his artistic language, from his early works through to his Venetian period following the Second World War, when his painting reached full expressive maturity. A selection of works by artists such as Otto Dix, Alexej von Jawlensky, Paul Klee and Oskar Schlemmer, drawn from the artist’s own collection, helps to outline the cultural context and the network of artistic relationships that accompanied the painter’s career.

Cover: Still Life with Lemons, 1921