Joost Schmidt
Biography
He studied art in Weimar for fifteen years under three different schools in the same buildings — the ducal academy, then the Bauhaus — and nearly stayed for a fourth.
A ducal art student, 1910
Born at Wunstorf near Hanover in 1893, Schmidt began studying at the Grand Ducal Saxon Academy of Fine Arts in Weimar in 1910, became a master student of Max Thedy and took his painting diploma in 1913/14. That is the school van de Velde's buildings were built for, nine years before the Bauhaus existed — the same address, a different institution, and the same young man.
War, then back to the same rooms, 1918–1925
Military service and captivity took the intervening years; he returned to Germany in 1918, and from 1919 to 1924/25 he was at the Staatliches Bauhaus in the stone and wood sculpture workshop under Johannes Itten and Oskar Schlemmer. Few biographies show the continuity of these buildings as plainly: a painting diploma from the ducal academy, then an apprenticeship in sculpture from the school that replaced it.
The offer he did not take, 1925–1948
In 1925 he had a preliminary contract with Otto Bartning, director of the state building school in Weimar, to lead a sculpture workshop here. He took Walter Gropius's offer instead and became a Jungmeister at Dessau — one of the small decisions by which the town lost the school's people as well as the school. At Dessau he taught typography in the preliminary course, led the sculpture workshop from 1928 to 1930 and the advertising, typography and printing workshop with its photography department from 1928 to 1932. He died in Nuremberg in 1948.
Questions visitors ask
- What was Joost Schmidt's connection to Weimar's art schools?
- He studied at two institutions in the same buildings — the Grand Ducal Saxon Academy of Fine Arts from 1910, then the Bauhaus's sculpture workshop from 1919 to 1924/25.
- Why didn't Joost Schmidt stay in Weimar?
- In 1925 he had a preliminary contract to lead a sculpture workshop at Weimar's state building school, but took Walter Gropius's offer of a Jungmeister post at Dessau instead.
- What did Joost Schmidt teach at Dessau?
- Typography in the preliminary course, the sculpture workshop from 1928 to 1930, and the advertising, typography and printing workshop with its photography department from 1928 to 1932.
- Can I visit where Joost Schmidt studied and taught?
- Yes, Bauhaus-Universität Weimar — the same buildings that housed both the ducal academy and the Bauhaus.
Notable Works & Achievements
the Bauhaus sculpture workshop at Dessau (1928–1930)
the advertising, typography and printing workshop (1928–1932)
Connected Places in Weimar
Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 8, 99423 Weimar
He studied in these buildings twice over — at the ducal academy from 1910 and at the Bauhaus from 1919.
Historical Context
A student of the whole Weimar period, in the sculpture workshop from 1919 to 1924/25.
The Bauhaus was founded in Weimar in 1919 and voted out by 1925 — time enough to change what a design school is, and not enough for the town that made it to keep it.
Read more about this period →His first Weimar years belong to the ducal art academy of 1910, before the war and before the Bauhaus.
Goethe died in 1832, and Weimar had to work out what a town does after its golden age. It decided to keep going, and the answer took eighty-six years — the era the Klassik Stiftung Weimar calls the Silver Age. Music replaced literature as the thing Weimar was for, two royal patrons paid for it, and the schools they founded outlived the monarchy that funded them.
Read more about this period →Quick Facts
1893
1948
German
In Weimar's history
In Weimar's history
An election, a halved budget, and contracts cancelled to 31 March 1925: the school left for Dessau after six years.
He is one of the people the town lost with the school: the Weimar contract was signed and then declined.