HAUPT, KARL HERMAN (German, 1904-1983)

Born in Halle (Saale) Haupt studied applied arts at the Kunstgewerbeschule Burg Giebichenstein, 1920-23. He graduated as an undergraduate painter in 1923, before moving to Weimar. Here he studied at the Bauhaus, 1923-24 under Joseph Albers and Moholy-Nagy. He also attended the classes of Vassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee and Walter Gropius. It was with Klee that Haupt practiced ‘action drawing’ and the results of this originally classical-academic exercise show the interest taken in the laws of individual design beyond a conventional imitation of nature, both in his drawings and paintings of 1923-1928.
After leaving the Bauhaus, he pursued a career as a textile designer and painter on silk in the textile industry of Krefeld until 1938, when the upcoming nazi regime classified his art as ‘degenerate’. During the war, Haupt was active as a technical draughtsman, keeping a low profile to disguise his pacifist feelings.
During 1951-59 Haupt was a teacher at the Hochschule für Angewandte Kunst, Berlin-Weißensee and from 1953 a scientific graphic designer and photographer at the Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin. Haupt died in Berlin in 1983.