Peter Behrens

Peter Behrens
Design for a poster advertising an AEG metal filament light, 1907. color lithograph, 67 x 52 cm. AEG company archives, Frankfurt/Main.


1868, Hamburg - 1940, Berlin.
Behrens was a German architect, painter, graphic artist, industrial designer, applied artist, typeface designer, and book artist. He studied painting in Karlsruhe, Dusseldorf, Munich and with the luministes in Netherlands from 1885-19=892. from 1899-1903 he was a member of the Darmstadt artists' colony, where he designed furniture and furnishings (wallpapers, textiles, decorative glass) as well as theatre sets , and where he first turned is attention to architecture. From 1903-07 he was head of the School of Arts and Crafts in Dusseldorf. His buildings from this period are characterized by simple cubic forms with a linear ornament.


From 1907-14 he was a member of the AEG artistic advisory committee in Berlin, in which capacity he designed - alongside all AEG's factories and office buildings- typefaces, advertising material, and electrical goods (including domestic appliances and lighting).


In his graphic works, which reveal the strong influence of van de Velde, he fused classical motifs with abstract Jugendstil ornament. He also created 2 new typefaces: Behrens Italic and Behrens Roman. He is one of the founders of the Munich Secession. (1892) (Gabriele Fahr-Becker)

Applique on wool by Armas Eliel Lindgren

Liturgical vestment (detail), 1904. 185 x 189 cm. Taideteollisuumuseo, Helsinki.

This Art Nouveau piece has such interesting subject matter. Used in a religious setting, this cloth has what looks like a heart or root of some kind at the top, encased in lines of thorns with a set of 'bulbs' or circles off to the side and blooming flowers at the bottom followed by drops of blood. Very symbolic of Christ's crown of thorns and blood of his body, etc. It is beautifully translated into a visual metaphor.

Armas Lindgren born 1874- 1929, Finnish architect. A famed architect with the firm Gesellius, Lindgren & Saarinen, known as GLS. The international fame of the 3 architects was based on the Finnish Pavilion which they designed for the Paris World Expo of 1900. In 1905 Lindgren left the firm to work with Wivi Lonn, one of Finland's first woman architects. GLS was dissolved in 1907. Lindgren chiefly built private houses and churches. The works which he designed in collaboration with Gesellius and Saarinen include the Villa Suur-Merijoki in Viipuri (1903) and the "fortified" Hvittorp House in Kirkkonummi (1901-04). (Gabriele Fahr-Becker)