The other day, we went to see an exhibit entitled Nathan Lerner and the New Bauhaus in Chicago. Well, we're originally from Chicago and know of both the old and the new Bauhaus, but we'd never heard of this man, or so we thought. It turns out that we are artist descendents of his. He was the class mate and/or teacher of our teachers. We recognized projects that we'd done as students. We couldn't believe that we'd never heard his name mentioned, or did we, and did we forget. His photographs were wonderful. He did many of Maxwell Street in the 1920s and 30s. As a kid, my father took me to Maxwell Street to buy a jacket once, which I loved. I remember the street being like a big flea market. It turns out that we do know this man, but in an unexpected way. He gave up photography for awhile and did design work. He is the man who designed the honey bear bottle and the sponge mop!! Also, he and his wife owned the building that Henry Darger lived in, and discovered his work when he moved out to a nursing home. We'd seen their names in the Darger catalog from a show we'd seen. Okay, so things are coming together! More than this, we got all emotional about what our teachers passed on to us, which in turn, we passed on to our students. For real, we got out of the museum (MAHJ - Musee d'Art et Histoire Judaisme) and stood on the sidewalk and were all like "can you believe this?" His wife is a classical pianist and is giving a concert in her husband's honor tomorrow night. We're planning to go to the concert.
The other day, we went to see an exhibit entitled Nathan Lerner and the New Bauhaus in Chicago. Well, we're originally from Chicago and know of both the old and the new Bauhaus, but we'd never heard of this man, or so we thought. It turns out that we are artist descendents of his. He was the class mate and/or teacher of our teachers. We recognized projects that we'd done as students. We couldn't believe that we'd never heard his name mentioned, or did we, and did we forget. His photographs were wonderful. He did many of Maxwell Street in the 1920s and 30s. As a kid, my father took me to Maxwell Street to buy a jacket once, which I loved. I remember the street being like a big flea market. It turns out that we do know this man, but in an unexpected way. He gave up photography for awhile and did design work. He is the man who designed the honey bear bottle and the sponge mop!! Also, he and his wife owned the building that Henry Darger lived in, and discovered his work when he moved out to a nursing home. We'd seen their names in the Darger catalog from a show we'd seen. Okay, so things are coming together! More than this, we got all emotional about what our teachers passed on to us, which in turn, we passed on to our students. For real, we got out of the museum (MAHJ - Musee d'Art et Histoire Judaisme) and stood on the sidewalk and were all like "can you believe this?" His wife is a classical pianist and is giving a concert in her husband's honor tomorrow night. We're planning to go to the concert.
1 comment:
Wow, that's incredible!
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