Foundation Herbert Bayer

I have never let myself be constrained by an art theory or a doctrine. (Herbert Bayer)

When the budget for purchases is limited, donations and bequests are most welcome additions to collections. In a very generous gesture Joella Bayer, widow of the Bauhaus master Herbert Bayer, recently made a bequest of 48 works of painting, sculpture, drawing and poster art, which will now be presented in their entirety in a special exhibition in the basement of Lentos. Prominent Bayer paintings and photographs, which are ​“classics of art history” today, will additionally be presented in the series ​“work in focus”.

Herbert Bayer, along with Alfred Kubin one of the most important visual artists of the 20th century from Upper Austria, was born in 1900 in Haag am Hausruck. This universal artist achieved an international career, which took Bayer from Linz to Germany to the USA, where he died in 1985 in Santa Barbara, California. Bayer was one of the most influential designers and landscape designers in the United States, but he also set new standards as a painter, photographer and sculptor in his new country.

The substantial Bayer collection is the result of a long-standing friendship between the artist and his wife and the New Gallery of the City of Linz.

With around 135 works from all the periods of his creativity, the Lentos Collection now has the largest and most important Bayer collection of all Austrian museums.