How radical new beginnings become mainstreamed: The Case of César Klein

The ‘Novembergruppe’ took its name from the German ‘November Revolution’ in 1918. Its founding members were Max Pechstein, César Klein, and other ‘radical’ artists. Most of them had already been active members in the Neue Secession. In March 1919, Klein joined Walter Gropius, Bruno Taut and Adolf Behne in the ‘Arbeitsrat für Kunst’ (Workers Council for Art); this initiative influenced Gropius’s subsequent establishment of the Bauhaus in Weimar. Although Gropius had hoped to convince César Klein to join him as founding member and ‘master’ in Weimar, Klein decided to stay in Berlin.

César Klein was thus a key player in the leading art organizations of his era, but he is known today only within a small circle of German art historians. In part, this reflects art criticism’s lingering ‘untimely’ prejudice in favor of ‘free’ and high art, as compared to its applied step siblings. And yet Klein’s work contributed decisively to the realization of the new avant-garde art styles after the rapid death of their underlying political-artistic credos and manifestos.

This is largely due to his forthright embrace of the whole range of art forms, from ‘pure’ painting to ‘applications’ of his art in the various branches of creative practice. He distinguished himself as a highly successful designer of stage settings in theater and film, but also of large-scale mosaics, glass windows and ceilings, murals, furniture and more in public and private settings; exactly this success spelled doom for appreciating him as an artist in his own right.