[2][8] At this time he joined a group of artists and architects associated with the newly formed Merz Akademie, a college of design, art, and media in Stuttgart.

[7] In 1921 his friendship with a French artist, Sébastien Laurent, led him to begin studies in Weimar at Bauhaus, then a new school that taught an integrated approach to the fine and applied arts.

[8] His instructors were Johannes Itten and Lyonel Feininger, whose paintings were expressionist and abstract, and Paul Klee, who taught bookbinding, stained glass, and murals.

[6] With the rise of Nazism abstract artists found it increasingly difficult to sell their work and, in 1930, Drewes, finding the political pressure unbearable, emigrated to the United States.

[2][7] Also in that year Kandinsky introduced Drewes to Katherine Dreier, co-founder of the Society of Independent Artists and Société Anonyme.

A critic for The New York Times called attention to the subtle treatment in cityscape paintings he exhibited in the dual show with Carl Sprinchorn, noting that they "look fragile, as if they were made from reflections of the city in a soap bubble, rather than from life".

[13] Of his solo show at the Morton Gallery Margaret Breuning, the critic for the New York Evening Post praised the "crisp vigor" of his portraits, his skill at handling the form and color of a still life, and the "well developed" and "imaginative" choice of viewpoint in a landscape.

of the Times called Drewes "an artist of promise" wrote of his "dynamic quality, an apparent fluency and economy of means", and said "he paints with sureness and vigor, with suggestion rather than in detail".

As a thousand forces are at work in America today trying to make all the artists conform to set patterns, this ability to withstand influences is a distinct asset.

"[16] Howard Devree of The New York Times praised the oils, watercolors, and drawings that Drewes showed in his solo exhibition at the Morton Galleries in 1933.

Drewes recalled that Kandinsky was a patient and nonjudgmental teacher who would challenge his students to work out their own solutions to non-objective projects he would set and ask them to discuss the reasons behind their choices.

[4] That year he also was given a ten-year retrospective exhibition at the Uptown Gallery, and participated in group shows held by Société Anonyme (at Black Mountain College in North Carolina) and the Municipal Art Committee of New York.

[19] In 1937 Drewes also exhibited at the East River Gallery in an innovative program that gave potential buyers the option of renting a work while deciding whether or not to buy it.

[21] During the same eventful year a prominent architect, Wallace Harrison, helped Drewes obtain a position at the School of Architecture of Columbia University.

Jerome Klein in the New York Post said "he handles the vocabulary of 'non-objective' art with the sophistication and assurance of a mature artist who is particularly adept in color relations.

'"[22] Similarly, the reviewer for Art News commented on the "breadth of scope", the "clear eloquent color", and "imaginative designs", of his work and recommended the show to "anyone who searches for meaning in abstractions".

Like Drewes, Holty was a founding member of American Abstract Artists and, at the time the school opened, both men were showing works at an exhibition held by that group at the Riverside Museum.

[24][25][26] While teaching at the Institute, Drewes continued as an instructor of drawing and painting at Columbia and held two other positions: director of the WPA/FAP Graphic Arts Project and map maker for the Fairchild Aerial Survey Company.

In 1940 the U.S. Army Air Corps began testing the airplanes and cameras of the company for aerial reconnaissance and the preparation wide-area survey maps.

Edward Alden Jewell of The New York Times observed that his work was not exclusively non-objective but included expressionist abstractions that were based on natural objects.

Drewes, he said, "seems to differ from most confirmed modernists in that he turns at will from the purely abstract to things that at most are semi-abstract, and in one still life painted in the present year he indulges in a degree of objectivity in the fruit and in the half of a wine bottle that is permitted to show that would shock the believers in non-objective art".

[4][36] Soon after his arrival he made friends with the German artist, Max Beckmann, who had been hired as an art teacher at the university and who remained there for the next two years.

The university promoted him to professor of design and first-year program director and he was thereafter able both to support his family and to devote time to making works of art.

In 1948 Dreves was commissioned by the Edward L. Kramer family to paint a mural on the large front of a new house located at 24 Northcote Drive, Brentwood, MO (see figure).

"[23] In 1949 another New York Times critic said he "constructs efficient uncompromising designs in aggressive geometrical forms whose separate identity is emphasized by boundaries of harsh, clear color".

A prolific printmaker, Drewes produced during his lifetime some 732 fine prints, including 269 etchings and drypoints, 30 lithographs, 14 celloprints, a lone silkscreen, and 418 woodcuts, of which 255 were in color.

In 1935 Drewes began his long teaching career with a position at the Brooklyn Museum School and in 1936 he became a citizen of the United States.