Naum slutzky biography of donald
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During the late sixties while studying what was then known as Product Design (Engineering) at Birmingham College of Art & Design, (now Birmingham City University), I had the good fortune to be a student of Naum Slutzky, who was still teaching at the age of 70. Slutzky began as a ung Master at the Bauhaus in Weimar, reporting directly to Swiss expressionist painter, designer, writer, theorist, and teacher, Johannes Itten, working in the precious metals workshop he later shared with Laslo Moholy-Nagy.
When inom met Slutzky, he looked singularly like a miniature Leon Trotsky, and while lacking the latter’s revolutionary zeal, appeared to be in a state of perpetual indignation. He maintained a deep aversion for designers who were content to merely fumble with styling rather than involve themselves with functional design, thus contributing to the fickle agenda of human-compatible products. Or, just as depraved, thos
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Jacqueline Strecker noted that Dresden was already a conservative city politically and that the newly appointed director of the Dresden Art Academy was even more conservative. The Lord Mayor of Dresden was dressed in full Nazi uniform when he toured the exhibition in 1933.
But what does it mean when we note that the first decadent art exhibition was put on by the Nazis in 1933 and not in 1937? Simple... the Nazis had clearly worked out their ideology as soon as they came to power! Thus no one in Germany could say in 1933 that they didn't realise
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Slutzky, born in Kyiv (Kiev) emigrated to Vienna in 1905 where he first trained as a jeweller under Anton Diamant. He briefly worked for the Wiener Werkstätte between 1912-13 before undertaking engineering studies (1914-18). He joined the Bauhaus in 1922, working with Christian Dell and Laslo Moholy-Nagy and left in 1927 to set up his own studio in Hamburg. Forced to flee to Britain from Germany in 1933, he first started teaching at Dartington Hall, then the Central School in London and subsequently at the Royal College of Art (1950-57). He spent the final years of his career as Professor of Product Design at the Birmingham School of Arts and Crafts (1957-64) and Professor of Industrial Design at Ravensbourne College of Art, Bromley (1965). He was an inspiring teacher and one of the most original jewellers to graduate from the Bauhaus.
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