It is still little known that Ludwig Grote (1893–1974) was one of the most important supporters of the Bauhaus during the Weimar Republic and one of its most influential propagandists in the Federal Republic of Germany. This book is the first dedicated to this art historian, curator, and cultural politician whose activities and views had a considerable influence on the evolution and perception of the school. Crucially involved in its move to Dessau and in the dismissal of its second director, Hannes Meyer, Grote failed in his attempt to preserve the Bauhaus Dessau as a “German Bauhaus” with the help of influential National Socialists. After World War II, he functioned as the first contact address and gathering point for former members of the Bauhaus who had remained in Germany and their works. With his lectures and publications and above all with important exhibitions, he had a lasting influence on the West German reception of the Bauhaus as a design school with a grounding in art. These efforts culminated in the show “50 jahre bauhaus” (50 years bauhaus), which opened in Stuttgart in 1968 and which on its subsequent fourteen-year world tour continued to convey Grote’s picture of the Bauhaus even after his death.

Ludwig Grote and the Bauhaus Idea, Edition Bauhaus 53, Peter Bernhard and Torsten Blume for the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation (ed.), Spector Books, Leipzig 2021.

ISBN 978-3-95905-279-5