Lot 457: Richard E. Filipowski (American, b. 1923) Non-Objective Composition Signed and dated "Filipow...

Richard E. Filipowski (American, b. 1923)

Non-Objective Composition
Signed and dated "Filipowski 49" on the reverse.
Oil on linen, 47 x 37 in. (119.4 x 94.0 cm), framed.
Condition: Craquelure.
N. B. Richard Filipowski studied under Bauhaus-trained expatriate László Moholy-Nagy at the Institute of Design in Chicago from 1942-1946. (1) For Moholy-Nagy, abstract geometric forms were the purest way to express visual relationships of 'tension, relaxation, and harmonization of forces' and that these relationships have 'always been the real content of painting.' (2) The present work is distinctively Bauhaus in its exploration of weight, balance, space and mass. After a brief period teaching under Walter Gropius at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Filipowski was hired in the School of Architecture and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he remained for the rest of his academic career. Filipowski was the first to introduce the Bauhaus teaching methods and curriculum to MIT, and his legacy was recognized in a comprehensive show at the MIT Museum in 2005. (3) (1) Falk, Peter, Who Was Who in American Art. Madison: Sound View Press, 1999, pg. 1118. (2) Roters, Eberhard, Painters of the Bauhaus. New York: Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, 1969, pg. 168-169. (3)