fbpx

Marcel Breuer

American, born Hungary

1902, Pécs, Hungary
1981, New York, New York

Biography

A native of Hungary, Marcel Breuer attended Allami Foreaiskola in Pecs before continuing his studies at the Bauhaus, a German art and architecture school founded by Walter Gropius that was in operation from 1919 to 1933.

Breuer went on to become a Bauhaus instructor in the mid-1920s, when his enthusiasm for the stability of a new bicycle he purchased gave him the idea of using tubular steel to design furniture forms. His "discovery" inspired an entire line of mass-produced steel furniture that epitomized the Bauhaus ideal: streamlined designs that expressed each object's functional and structural essence. The clean lines, hard edges, and simple geometric forms of the Wassily Chair, his most famous design, epitomized this "machine aesthetic."

After working for one year in London with F.R.S. Yorke, Breuer emigrated to the United States, where he taught at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. He operated a practice in New York from 1946 until his retirement in 1976.

Works in the Collection

Please note that artwork locations are subject to change, and not all works are on view at all times. If you are planning a visit to SFMOMA to see a specific work of art, we suggest you contact us at collections@sfmoma.org to confirm it will be on view.

Only a portion of SFMOMA's collection is currently online, and the information presented here is subject to revision. Please contact us at collections@sfmoma.org to verify collection holdings and artwork information. If you are interested in receiving a high resolution image of an artwork for educational, scholarly, or publication purposes, please contact us at copyright@sfmoma.org.

This resource is for educational use and its contents may not be reproduced without permission. Please review our Terms of Use for more information.