Book Launch: “The Hess Family Guestbooks – Weimar, the Bauhaus and the Hess Family Story”

The groundbreaking academic publication, “The Hess Family Guestbooks – Weimar, the Bauhaus and the Hess Family Story”, is being published as the fourth volume in the Hans Hess series by Manifesto Press – a collaboration between the Hans Hess Foundation and the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung.

Spanning just under 600 pages, this bilingual volume (English and German) reproduces for the first time the two extraordinary guest books kept by the Hess family from 1907 to 1965. The books document the family’s journey from their affluent, Jewish-influenced household in Erfurt, through the cultural heyday of the Weimar Republic, to their forced exile in Britain following the Nazis’ rise to power.

The Hess family’s house served as a meeting place and exhibition space for the artistic avant-garde of the 1920s. Some of the most prominent figures in modern art left unique marks in the guest books, including Wassily Kandinsky, Lyonel Feininger, Paul Klee, Max Pechstein, Emil Nolde, Rohlfs and Molzahn, as well as Kurt Weill and Charlie Chaplin. Their contributions range from small drawings and watercolours to inscriptions, poems and musical scores, often on large

Speaker:

Brigitte Franzen, Director Bauhaus - Archiv

Anita Halpin, founder and president of Hans Hess Foundation and daughter of Hans Hess

Ramune Kregzdyte, Head of Studio at Manifesto Press

Nick Wright, founder and chair of Manifesto Press and former student of Hans Hess

The event will be held in English.

An event organised in collaboration with Manifesto Press.