Johannes Itten
Born in 1888.
Died in 1967.
Johannes Itten is documented as a painter, teacher and colour theorist, and was also active as a photographer, graphic artist, sculptor, draughtsman, writer and architect.
His early training and encounters formed a European trajectory: he discovered Cubism in Paris in 1910 and the Blaue Reiter group in Munich in 1911, before completing his training with Adolf Hölzel in Stuttgart from 1913 to 1916. His output from this period includes dated and referenced works such as Horizontal-Vertical (1915) and Group of Houses in Spring (1916), the latter being recorded in the Museo Thyssen documentation.
From October 1919, he joined the Bauhaus team, where he was responsible for the preliminary course until 1923. After leaving the Bauhaus, he taught from 1923 to 1926 within a Mazdaznan community in Herrliberg.
From 1954 onwards, he devoted himself chiefly to painting and theoretical writing, leading in particular to the publication of Kunst der Farbe (The Art of Colour) in 1961. This work, along with other didactic titles (Le dessin et la forme, L'étoile des couleurs), was translated and published in French, contributing to the dissemination of his ideas on colour.
The reception and legacy of his teaching have been documented through contemporary institutional presentations, including an exhibition entitled “Johannes Itten et son enseignement” at the Centre Pompidou, and his archives are reported to be held at the Zurich Central Library.
