Test your design IQ
MANILA, Philippines -Who is the Swiss expressionist painter and teacher whose work on color and seasonal color analysis is used by cosmetologists today?
He was born at Sudern-Lindern in Bern Oberland on Nov. 11, 1888. Initially training as a primary school teacher, he taught and then spent a semester at the Geneva Ecole des Beaux Arts in Genf before taking a diploma in mathematics and science to teach secondary school.
Trips abroad, however, convinced him that he would be happier and better off as a painter. In 1913, he trained under Adolf Holzel in Stuttgart, then moved to Vienna in 1916, where he was inspired by the music and his circle of friends, including Adolf Loos and Alma Mahler.
They in turn introduced him to Walter Gropius, who extended his invitation to teach at the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1919. While teaching there between 1919 and 1923, he developed a universal doctrine of design, which he taught.
In 1926, he founded an art school of his own in Berlin to train painters, printmakers, photographers, and architects. He likewise taught at the Krefeld School of Textile Design, where he trained industrial textile designers until 1938. At the close of 1938 he became the director of the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Zurich and of the school affiliated with it.
Migrating to the Netherlands in 1938, he worked extremely hard in the years that followed, teaching and holding administrative posts at several arts and crafts schools and museums.
Teaching, giving so many lectures and organizing exhibitions gave him little time for painting. Not until he retired in 1955 was he able to devote himself intensively to his own work. His works exploring the use and composition of color resemble square op art canvases for artists like Kadinsky.
More importantly, he laid out his experience and knowledge of color in Art and Color in 1961, followed up by another book, My Preliminary Course at the Bauhas on form and design.
Darmstadt Polytechnic awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1965, and in 1966, he received the Netherlands Sikkens Art Prize.
Although he died in Zurich in 1967, his work on color continues to be an inspiration. He had been the first to associate color palettes with four types of people, and had designated those types with the names of the seasons.
Shortly after his death, his designations gained popularity in the cosmetics industry with the publication of Color Me a Season. Cosmetologists today continue to use seasonal color analysis, a tribute to his early work.
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Last week’s question: Who designed the Whitney Museum of American Art?
Answer: Getrude Vanderbilt Whitney
Winner: Augusto B. Mendoza of Mandaluyong City
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