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Peter Behrens

Peter BEHRENS was born in Hamburg, Germany. He studied painting and architecture in Hamburg, Düsseldorf and Karlsruhe. Inspired by the emerging Art Nouveau style, he first worked as a painter, illustrator and book-binder as he frequented the bohemian circles and took part to the Munich Secession. In 1899, he became member of the artist colony created in Darmstadt. He built there his own house and designed all decorative elements inside (furniture, paintings, pottery, tableware). At this stage of his life, he left the artistic circles of Munich: his artistic desires moved away from the exuberance of Jugendstil and he began to produce more sober and austere designs.

During this period, Behrens was attracted by various artistic enterprises particularly design in applied arts, such as ceramics and was interested in the reform of life-styles and taste-making that was growing in the artistic spheres all over Europe. Behrens developed an elegant geometric, functional style that was between Jugendstil and Industrial Classicism and was forecasting the Modernism movement that would emerge later on in Germany.

Peter Behrens in wikipedia