Ernő Kállai
A Hungarian theorist, aesthetician, and teacher, Kállai had lived in Germany since 1920 and had gained a reputation with his reviews, published in Das Kunstblatt and Sozialistische Monatshefte. In the early 1920s, he defended Constructivism, but from 1925 onward, the decline of revolutionary utopias made him turn to craftmenship and realism. At the beginning of the economic crisis, when left-wing political movements grew in strength, Kállai focused on social aspects of housing and the function of painting, film, photography, etc. He advocated the notion that production had to meet the real needs of the masses. During his year as editor of the Bauhaus journal (1928-29), he declared - both in his teaching and in many of his articles - that the Bauhaus was scientifically oriented, in accordance with the principles of its new director, Hannes Meyer.
