Williams, Inge, and the Bauhaus

Tennessee Williams acknowledged the literacy of William Inge, and he offered credit to his fellow playwright for opening his mind to certain writers, musicians, and artists.
Inge possessed the catalog for an influential exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art from 1938. 

A press memo issued by the Museum claimed it would be considered its most unusual exhibition—and certainly one of its largest. That exhibition was Bauhaus: 1919–1928, an expansive survey dedicated to this incomparably influential German school of art and design. On display were nearly 700 examples of the school’s output, including works of textile, glass, wood, canvas, metal, and paper. It was a celebration of the remarkable creativity and productivity of the Bauhaus, which had been forced to close under pressure from the Nazi Party just five years prior. 

Tennessee was particularly struck by one passage, which he paraphrased to me in 1982, but which reads in full:

"Architects, sculptors, painters, we must all turn to the crafts. Art is not a 'profession.' There is no essential difference between the artist and the craftsman. The artist is an exalted craftsman. In rare moments of inspiration, moments beyond the control of his will, the grace of heaven may cause his work to blossom into art. But proficiency in his craft is essential to every artist. Therein lies a source of creative imagination. Let us create a new guild of craftsmen, without the class distinctions which raise an arrogant barrier between craftsman and artist. Together let us conceive and create the new building of the future, which will embrace architecture and sculpture and painting in one unity and which will rise one day toward heaven from the hands of a million workers like the crystal symbol of a new faith."