ASPEN, CO.- The Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies (the Bayer Center), located on the Aspen Institute campus in Aspen, CO, announces the opening of its new exhibition Bauhaus Typography at 100. This collaboration with San Francisco-based Letterform Archive, which features Herbert Bayer’s innovative typographic design opened June 11, 2024, and runs through April 26, 2025.

Few design movements have shaped contemporary typography quite like the Bauhaus. Founded in 1919 by German architect Walter Gropius, the school embraced the tools of mass production in the creation of radical new art. Though the institution only lasted fourteen years, its influence endures. Bauhaus valued the integration of art, craft, and technology, which later became foundational principles in modern graphic design and today, just over one hundred years after its opening, those principles continue to influence the development of new techniques in graphic design and new typographic design.

First exhibited in San Francisco at Letterform Archive, Bauhaus Typography at 100 explores the school’s unique legacy in graphic design and typography through artifacts of its own making – its books, magazines, course materials, product catalogs, stationery, promotional fliers, and other ephemera — as well as objects created by its many students and teachers before and after the time of the school. The exhibition draws a throughline from the Bauhaus’s iconic style to the shape of typography today.

“Herbert Bayer's inventive use of typography and experimental layouts revolutionized graphic design in the 20th century. His work, such as the geometric sans-serif Universal typeface, exemplified the Bauhaus ethos of simplicity, functionality, and clarity,” says exhibition curator Rob Saunders of Letterform Archive.

The exhibition, curated by Rob Saunders and Henry Cole Smith and designed by James Williams, principal at The Common Era, will feature work by Johannes Itten, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy, Joost Schmidt, and Herbert Bayer along with others whose innovative typographic contributions are often overlooked, including women such as Friedl Dicker.

“We are excited to collaborate with Letterform Archive on this exhibition,” says Bayer Center Executive Director Lissa Ballinger. “A non-profit center for preserving and sharing the history of the graphic arts, Letterform is a perfect match for the Bayer Center as we develop exhibitions around our mission to preserve and honor the interdisciplinary nature of Herbert Bayer and his legacy in Aspen and beyond.”

The hardcover exhibition catalog, Bauhaus Typography at 100, features 280 pages with high-fidelity images of objects from the exhibition and an introduction by Bauhaus design expert Ellen Lupton. It is available for purchase in the Bayer Center Store.