User:Behr-Farbe/sandbox

Irene Bayer-Hecht was born into a Jewish Family in Chicago, Illinois on October 28, 1898. Her father took a job in Hungary and moved her there shortly afterward. At 22, she attended the Berlin College of Fine Arts. In 1923, she attended the first major Bauhaus exhibition in Weimar, where the Bauhaus showcased its exhibits and works in the Bauhaus building and the Am Horn house, a house made specifically for the event. Here she would meet the Bauhäusler, and future husband, Herbert Bayer. She applied to the Bauhaus but was denied due to the Master Council wanting to keep the number of female students low. In addition, Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus, figured she was unsuitable due to her interest in working with enamel. Up until 1924, Hecht would stay as a guest student at the Sorbonne and the École de Beaux-Arts in Paris. In Paris, she belonged to the avant-garde and intellectual scene and made her living as a seamstress for a Paris fashion house.

In 1925, she would move to the Bauhaus in Weimar and attend a preliminary course. She did this without having a decent formal induction to the school. She also attended photography courses at the Academy of Graphic Arts and Book Trade in Leipzig during this time. She would marry Bayer in 1925 and moved with him and the Bauhaus to Dessau in 1926.

At the Bauhaus in Dessau, she supported her husband with photographic and technical work and pursued independent photography projects of her own. Her work was used to show the spirit, creativity, and work of students of the Bauhaus to the world. In 1928 the couple separated due to Herbert having an extramarital affair and had their only child, Julia Alexandra, the following year. Irene Bayer presented her photographic works about the people living at the Bauhaus, at the Werkbund exhibition "Film und Foto" (FiFo) in Stuttgart in 1929. In 1938, Irene fled back to the US due to her Jewish heritage, and at the advice of Walter Gropius, and would give up photography in favor of working as a translator. During 1945, she and Herbert Bayer would officially divorce and Irene would begin working as translator for the US military in Munich for the next 2 years. She worked as the chief of the American Photo Section at this time as well.

After her stay in Munich, she would move back to the US and live in Santa Monica, California. Julia would pass away in 1963 and Irene would pass away in 1991. She is buried in Aspen Grove Cemetery in Aspen, Colorado next to her daughter's grave and near the graves of Herbert Bayer and his second wife.