New Vision by Lotte Beese

In summer 2020 the Bauhaus-Archiv / Museum für Gestaltung Berlin succeeded in acquiring rare vintage prints by the Bauhaus artist Lotte Stam-Beese. Stam-Beese began working at the Deutsche Werkstätten in Dresden-Hellerau as an office worker in the early 1920s. There, at the in-house workshop, she learned the fundamentals of weaving. In 1926 she enrolled at the Bauhaus Dessau and studied weaving under Gunta Stölzl. In 1928 she transferred to the carpentry workshop and studied building theory. There she received instruction from Hannes Meyer, Mart Stam and Hans Wittwer. Stam-Beese was the first and one of the few women to study architecture at the Bauhaus.

In March 1929 Stam-Beese left the Bauhaus without a degree. Nonetheless she succeeded in landing a job in the building sector, first at the architectural firm of Hugo Häring in Berlin, and then at Hannes Meyer’s private architecture office where she helped design the ADGB Trade Union School in Bernau. As an ardent communist, she was involved in planning several socialist housing projects in the early 1930s, e.g. in Moscow, the Czech city of Brno and the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. In 1934 she and Mart Stam (whom she later married) established an architecture office in Amsterdam, “Stam en Beese Architecten”.

In 1944 Lotte Stam-Beese finally completed her studies and earned her diploma at the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture. At the end of World War II, she was one of the architects involved in rebuilding Rotterdam, and in 1946 she became the first woman to be employed at the municipal urban planning department – a remarkable career path for a woman of her time. Not only was the former Bauhaus student a successful architect, she was also an extremely talented photographer. There are several photos by Stam-Beese in the Bauhaus-Archiv collection, for example, portraits of fellow Bauhaus students in the weaving workshop and of Mart Stam. Many of these artistically impressively photos were taken directly at the Bauhaus, including the newly acquired portrait of Hannes Meyer.

The Swiss architect Hannes Meyer was the director of the Bauhaus Dessau from 1928 to 1930. The portrait of his face is a close-up viewed from above, which – due to the black background – appears almost disembodied. It shows Meyer smiling slightly, looking off to the right, his head tilted to the side, which was characteristic of the New Vision style of photography.

The portrait exudes a feeling of intimacy which one might not expect from the director of an academic institution and portrait instructor. As it so happened, Stam-Beese was romantically involved with Meyer, who was married at the time and with whom she had a child. This relationship was the reason why she left the Bauhaus so abruptly and later lived in Moscow for a short time in 1930 so that she could be near Meyer, who also went to Moscow after his termination at the Bauhaus. Her personal connection to Meyer is emphasised further by her dedication on the cardboard mount: “For Claudia Meyer”, one of Hannes Meyer’s daughters. The photo itself belonged to Livia Klee-Meyer, Meyer’s daughter from his first marriage.

For decades, the life and achievements of Hannes Meyer have received little attention by Bauhaus researchers in the West. For example, the Bauhaus-Archiv owns far fewer documents and works by Meyer compared to those by Walter Gropius, whose estate is also owned by the institution. With this portrait by Lotte Stam-Beese, the collection has now been enriched with a personal document of the second Bauhaus director.