Museum of Modern Art, Herbert Bayer Letters

This pair of letters shed light on Herbert Bayer’s work for the Museum of Modern Art, both before and after World War II. The first, written by MoMA curator John McAndrew in prewar years, names Bayer as the European contact in charge of collecting material for an exhibition of industrial art. The second letter, dating from 1946, is addressed to Bayer by Edgar Kaufmann, Jr., the Museum’s Director of the Department of Industrial Design. At this point Bayer is living in Colorado, having immigrated in 1938, and is involved in the organization of a Bauhaus exhibition to be held in Germany.