ITTEN, JOHANNES
* 11.11.1888 Süderen-Linden, † 25.3.1967 Zurich
Born into a farming family in the Bernese Oberland in 1888, Johannes Itten followed in his father's footsteps in 1904 and began training as a teacher at the cantonal teacher training college in Berne. By 1909 he had already made the decision to become a painter, but was not satisfied with his art studies in Geneva. In addition to artists and musicians, it was there that he met Eugène Gilliard, whose book on the fundamentals of design was crucial to the young artist's own theory of art. In 1913 he moved to Stuttgart as a pupil of Adolf Hölzel, which marked the beginning of his artistic career. With Hölzel he learned colour-form analysis and soon became his best student. Itten soon turned to abstract painting and developed his own independent style in a very short time. In a gesture of farewell, so to speak, his teacher Hölzel organised an exhibition for him at Herwarth Walden’s gallery, which testifies to the great respect and affection between teacher and pupil. In 1916, the young artist moved to Vienna, where, as a teacher at a private art school, he was able for the first time to test and further develop the pedagogical concept he had been working on for years. Here he met Alma Mahler, who introduced him to Walter Gropius.
With the founding of the Bauhaus School in Weimar in 1919, Gropius created something unique and unprecedented: for the first time, the visual arts, the performing arts and the applied arts were taught on an equal footing with the common goal of creating a total work of art under the primacy of functionality. Itten became the teacher of what was known as the preliminary course, in which the students learned the basics of form and colour design and the laws of form and colour, but, according to Itten's vision, they were also intended to acquire an understanding of where their strengths lay in the arts. Soon, Johannes Itten, who also saw his teaching as a mission which he passionately pursued and defended, and Walter Gropius, who was more rational and guided by reason, found themselves at odds and went their separate ways in 1922.
In 1929 Itten opened his own school in Berlin and in 1932 also became a teacher at the newly founded Fachschule für Textile Flächenkunst in Krefeld. As a former Bauhaus teacher, Itten was considered a "degenerate artist" after the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, which led to the closure of both art schools in the 1930s. In 1938 he decided to return to his homeland and took up the post of director of the School of Arts and Crafts and the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zurich. His long-standing interest in Asian art and philosophy culminated in 1952 in the founding of the Museum Rietberg in Zurich, which he directed until 1956.
Artistically, Johannes Itten is associated with the Bauhaus and abstract painting. However, his art theories and pedagogy had a lasting influence on the art of the 20th century. There are hardly any other artists who recognised and lived art in such a comprehensive and consistent way as Itten. Johannes Itten died in Zurich on 25 March 1967.
SIKART Lexikon zur Kunst in der Schweiz
Dora Imhof, 1998, aktualisiert 2010 https://www.sikart.ch/kuenstlerinnen.aspx?id=4023401
Works from our auctions
Works by this artist from our auctions
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JOHANNES ITTEN
CHF 100 000 / 140 000 | (€ 103 090 / 144 330)
Sold for CHF 120 000 (including buyer’s premium)
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JOHANNES ITTEN
CHF 30 000 / 50 000 | (€ 30 930 / 51 550)
Sold for CHF 102 500 (including buyer’s premium)
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JOHANNES ITTEN
CHF 60 000 / 90 000 | (€ 61 860 / 92 780)
Sold for CHF 72 500 (including buyer’s premium)
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JOHANNES ITTEN
CHF 4 000 / 6 000 | (€ 4 120 / 6 190)
Sold for CHF 17 400 (including buyer’s premium)
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JOHANNES ITTEN
CHF 4 000 / 6 000 | (€ 4 120 / 6 190)
Sold for CHF 8 750 (including buyer’s premium)
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JOHANNES ITTEN
CHF 6 000 / 8 000 | (€ 6 190 / 8 250)
Sold for CHF 7 200 (including buyer’s premium)
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JOHANNES ITTEN
CHF 3 000 / 4 000 | (€ 3 090 / 4 120)
Sold for CHF 6 875 (including buyer’s premium)
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JOHANNES ITTEN
CHF 3 000 / 5 000 | (€ 3 090 / 5 150)
Sold for CHF 6 250 (including buyer’s premium)
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JOHANNES ITTEN
CHF 4 000 / 6 000 | (€ 4 120 / 6 190)
Sold for CHF 4 750 (including buyer’s premium)
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JOHANNES ITTEN
CHF 3 500 / 5 500 | (€ 3 610 / 5 670)
Sold for CHF 3 332 (including buyer’s premium)
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JOHANNES ITTEN
CHF 2 000 / 3 000 | (€ 2 060 / 3 090)
Sold for CHF 3 125 (including buyer’s premium)
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JOHANNES ITTEN
CHF 2 500 / 3 500 | (€ 2 580 / 3 610)
Sold for CHF 2 640 (including buyer’s premium)
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