Josef Hartwig (1880–1956) was a

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 200 ...

sculptor and

Nazi Party The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...

member best known for his 1923 minimalist

chess set A chess set consists of a chessboard and White and Black in chess, white and black chess pieces for playing chess. There are sixteen pieces of each color: one King (chess), king, one Queen (chess), queen, two Rook (chess), rooks, two Bishop (chess ...

design, known as in German, or Bauhaus chess in English.

Personal life

Josef Hartwig was born on 19 March 1880 in Munich. Beginning at age 13, he served as an apprentice in the studio of stonemason Simon Korn. During his time in Korn's studio, Hartwig met a number of prominent architects including

Theodor Fischer Theodor Fischer (28 May 1862 – 25 December 1938) was a German architect and teacher. Career Fischer planned public housing projects for the city of Munich beginning in 1893. He was the joint founder and first chairman of the Deutscher Wer ...

and

August Endell August Endell (1871–1925) was a designer, writer, teacher, and German architect. He was one of the founders of the Jugendstil movement, the German counterpart of Art Nouveau. His first marriage was with Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven. Life Augus ...

. From 1904 to 1908 Hartwig attended the

Academy of Fine Arts, Munich The Academy of Fine Arts, Munich (german: Akademie der Bildenden Künste München, also known as Munich Academy) is one of the oldest and most significant art academies in Germany. It is located in the Maxvorstadt district of Munich, in Bavaria, ...

, studying under Balthasar Schmidt. For a brief period after his graduation, he worked as a stonemason, producing gravestones in Berlin. In 1921,

Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-American architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in conne ...

invited Hartwig to teach at the Bauhaus in Weimar. Hartwig accepted the offer going on to serve as a teacher and head of the sculpture department from 1921 to 1925. During his brief time there, he designed two key Bauhaus pieces: his chess set design, and "Owl" or "Eule" in 1922. After his tenure at the Bauhaus, Hartwig continued producing sculptural work and began a brief career in art restoration. During the

Third Reich Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

, Hartwig was a member of the Nazi Party.

Chess sets

From 1922 to 1924, Hartwig designed a series of wooden chess sets, which have now become a famous example of the Bauhaus design sensibilities. The detailed design of the pieces differed from model to model, but all of them feature geometric shapes with a square base---in Model XVI from 1924 the pawns are plain wood cubes. The design of each piece combines two different forms of representation. First, they abstract the visual appearances of traditional chess pieces into simple geometric shapes. Second, the shape of each piece reflects how it moves: pawns and rooks move in straight lines and are represented as rectangular prisms, the bishops feature diagonal lines, the king has both straight and diagonal elements, and the knights are L-shaped. The chess sets were sold in two versions, a "daily use" version (''Gebrauchsspiel'') which cost 51 Marks, and a hand-made "luxury" version (''Luxusspiel'') which used more expensive types of wood and cost 155 Marks. As was the case with most Bauhaus products, this was too expensive for most consumers, and the chess sets remained a luxury item sold in small numbers.

References

1880 births 1956 deaths Nazi Party members Bauhaus teachers Artists from Munich Academy of Fine Arts, Munich alumni {{Germany-sculptor-stub