Werner Drewes

Werner Drewes (1899-1985) was a German-American painter and printmaker, born in 1899 in Canig, Germany. Since his death in 1985, recognition of Drewes's important role and impact on twentieth century American art has steadily grown among collectors and curators. A student at the Bauhaus during the 1920s, Drewes, along with Lyonel Feininger and László Moholy-Nagy, was one of the first artists to convey the groundbreaking concepts of that school to the United States via his painting, printmaking and teaching.

The son of a conservative Lutheran Minister, Drewes was born in Canig, Germany in 1899. After being drafted into the army and serving two years as a soldier on the Western Front, Drewes was admitted to the Bauhaus (Weimar) in 1921 where he studied under Paul Klee, Johannes Itten and Georg Muche. From 1923 to 1927 he traveled extensively throughout Europe, North America and Asia, obtaining the occasional art commission in order to support his journey. Upon his return to Germany in 1927 he was readmitted to the Bauhaus in its new location in Dessau, where he enrolled in classes with the artists László Moholy-Nagy (graphics) and Wassily Kandinsky (painting).

By 1930, as political pressure on artists became increasingly intolerable, especially for those artists dedicated to abstract art (Hitler closed the Bauhaus in 1933), Drewes left Germany and emigrated to New York City. Despite the Great Depression, Drewes flourished in his new environment. He taught printmaking at the Brooklyn Museum under the Federal Art Project (Drewes was also Technical Supervisor of the FAP's Graphics Division for the period 1941-42), lectured at Stanley William Hayter's Atelier 17 and was an instructor in painting, drawing and printmaking at Columbia University. In 1937 he was a founding member of the American Abstract Artists group, the first formal organization in the United States devoted to the creation of non-objective art.

Drewes's reputation continued to grow, and in 1946 he accepted the position of Professor of Design at Washington University in St. Louis. This tenured post afforded Drewes more financial stability and as result he was able to further explore and fine-tune his unique interpretations of the Bauhaus's aesthetic spirit. It was during this time he met, and became good friends with Max Beckmann who was also on the teaching staff at the university.

Drewes retired from Washington University in 1965, eventually settling in Reston, Virginia, where he remained active until his death in 1985. Drewes enjoyed a large amount of recognition for his work in these later years including exhibits at major galleries in Germany and Turkey, and a retrospective devoted entirely to his printmaking held at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in 1984.

Selected exhibitions

* 1961: "Cleveland Museum of Art"
* 1962: "Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts, Museum of the Legion of Honor", San Francisco
* 1966: "Everhart Museum", Scranton, Pennsylvania
* 1968: "Trenton State College"
* 1969: "National Collection of Fine Arts", Washington
* 1979: "Washington University", St. Louis
* 1983: "Associated American Artists", New York
* 1984: "Smithsonian Museum of American Art", Washington (major retrospective)
* 2000: "Tobey C. Moss Gallery", Los Angeles
* 2006: "Platt Fine Art", Chicago

Selected collections

* "Smithsonian Museum of American Art", Washington
* "Metropolitan Museum of Art", New York
* "Whitney Museum of American Art", New York
* "New York Public Library"
* "Museum of Modern Art", New York
* "Brooklyn Museum"
* "National Gallery of Art", Washington
* "Museum of Fine Arts", Boston

References

* Dreyfuss, Caril (ed.). "Werner Drewes: Woodcuts" [exhibition catalogue] . Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1969.
* Geierhaas, Franz & Brigitte Hellgoth. "The Creative Act". International Print Society, 1984.
* Norelli, Martina. "Werner Drewes: Sixty Five Years of Printmaking". Washington: National Museum of American Art, 1984.
* Rose, Ingrid. "Werner Drewes: A Catalogue Raisonné of his Prints". Munich-New York: Verlag Kunstgalerie Esslingen, 1984.

External links

* [http://americanart.si.edu/search/artist_bio.cfm?ID=1344 Smithsonian American Art Museum] (Werner Drewes)
* [http://www.aaa.si.edu/collections/collections_list.cfm/fuseaction/Collections.BrowseCollections/search_letter/D/show_images/false Smithsonian Archives of American Art] (Werner Drewes)
* [http://www.americanabstractartists.org/ American Abstract Artists]
* [http://artandsocialissues.cmaohio.org/web-content/pages/war_drews.html Columbus Museum of Art] Web page on "Distorted Swastika" by Werner Drewes (click on picture for detailed version)