Among the pupils he influenced was Kurt Schmidt, who was also trained by Wassily Kandinsky and Oskar Schlemmer.
Bauhaus workshop
A year after van Doesburg’s visit to Weimar, Schmidt participated at the annual Bauhaus Exhibition.
His contribution was a constructivist relief, made of painted plywood in the Bauhaus carpentry workshop.
It was entitled Form- und Farborgel mit bewegenden Farbklängen (Form and Colour Organ with Moving Colour Tones) and depending on the standpoint of the viewer, different parts of the multicoloured composition became visible, hence the title.
The 3ft 4in (1.03m) square relief now belongs to the Bauhaus Museum in Weimar.
Almost a century after its inception, a preliminary work for the Form- und Farborgel… surfaced at the auction held by Mehlis (23% buyer’s premium) in Plauen on May 27-29.
It was half the size of the completed work, signed by Schmidt and dated 1923. With a starting price of €1800, it might have been an opportunity for the Bauhaus Museum to bring the two works together.
One cannot say if the museum joined in the bidding, but as things turned out, the relief was eventually sold to a German collector for €10,000 (£8620).
