Walter Dexel ~ Painter
In his capacity as Art Director at the Art Union in Jena, Germany, Walter Dexel came into close contact with an extensive network of artists and intellectuals. Some of the most influential were Jean (Hans) Arp, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Kurt Schwitters and El Lissitzky, also associated with the Bauhaus movement, Paul Klee, László Moholy-Nagy and Walter Gropius, as well as De Stijl artists, most notably Théo van Doesburg, with whom Dexel developed a close friendship from 1921 onwards.
His work was later exhibited in several exhibitions alongside many of his fellow artists at Herwarth Walden's Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin. Dexel's illustrious network of connections is not only representative of his prominent position within the avant-garde circles of the time, but the diverse milieu he was part of is also telling of the wide variety of practices he pursued; in fact he was not restricting himself to painting, but he was also practicing design, scholarship, typography and curating. -by Micol Flocchini
