László Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy | |
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Born | László Weisz July 20, 1895 Bácsborsód, Austria-Hungary |
Died | November 24, 1946 Chicago, Illinois, US | (aged 51)
Resting place | Graceland Cemetery |
Nationality | Hungarian American (1946) |
Known for | Painting, photography, sculpture, film |
Notable work | Light Prop for an Electric Stage (1928–1930, also called Light-Space Modulator posthumously) |
Style | Constructivism[1] |
Movement | Bauhaus |
Spouses |
László Moholy-Nagy (/məˌhoʊliˈnɒdʒ/; Hungarian: [ˈlaːsloː ˈmoholiˌnɒɟ];[2] born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the integration of technology and industry into the arts. The art critic Peter Schjeldahl called him "relentlessly experimental" because of his pioneering work in painting, drawing, photography, collage, sculpture, film, theater, and writing.[1]
He also worked collaboratively with other artists, including his first wife Lucia Moholy, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, and Herbert Bayer.[3][4] His largest accomplishment may be the School of Design in Chicago, which survives today as part of the Illinois Institute of Technology, which art historian Elizabeth Siegel called "his overarching work of art".[3] He also wrote books and articles advocating a utopian type of high modernism.[3]
Early life and education (1895–1922)
Moholy-Nagy was born László Weisz in Bácsborsód (Hungary) to a Jewish family.[5] His mother's second cousin was the conductor Sir Georg Solti.[3] László was the middle child of three surviving sons, but the family was soon abandoned by the father, Lipót Weisz.[4]
The remainder of the family took protection and support from the maternal uncle, Gusztáv Nagy.
László attended a
In 1915 during
After his discharge from the military in October 1918, he abandoned his law studies[7] and attended the private art school of the Hungarian Fauve artist Róbert Berény. In 1918, he formally converted to the Hungarian Reformed Church; his godfather was his Roman Catholic university friend, the art critic Iván Hevesy.[citation needed] He was a supporter of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, declared early in 1919, though he assumed no official role in it.[citation needed]
After the defeat of the Communist regime in August, he withdrew to Szeged. An exhibition of his work was held there, before he left for Vienna around November 1919.[8][9]
Moholy-Nagy moved to Berlin early in 1920, where he met photographer and writer Lucia Schulz; they married the next year.[7]
In 1922, at a joint exhibition with fellow Hungarian Peter Laszlo Peri at Der Sturm, he met Walter Gropius.[7] That summer, he vacationed on the Rhone with Lucia, who introduced him to making photograms on light-sensitized paper.[7] He also began sketching ideas for what would become his most well-known sculpture, the Light-Space Modulator.[7]
Bauhaus years (1923–1928)
In 1923, Moholy-Nagy was invited by Walter Gropius to teach at the Bauhaus in Weimar, Germany. He took over Johannes Itten's role co-teaching the Bauhaus foundation course with Josef Albers, and also replaced Paul Klee as Head of the Metal Workshop.[7][10][11] This effectively marked the end of the school's expressionistic leanings and moved it closer towards its original aims as a school of design and industrial integration.[5] The Bauhaus became known for the versatility of its artists, and Moholy-Nagy was no exception. Throughout his career, he became proficient and innovative in the fields of photography, typography, sculpture, painting, printmaking, film-making, and industrial design.
One of his main focuses was photography; starting in 1922, he had been initially guided by the technical expertise of his first wife and collaborator Lucia Moholy.[12][13][14] In his books Malerei, Photographie, Film (1925)[15] and The New Vision, from Material to Architecture (1932),[16] he coined the term Neues Sehen (New Vision) for his belief that the camera could create a whole new way of seeing the outside world that the human eye could not. This theory encapsulated his approach to his art and teaching.
Moholy-Nagy was the first interwar artist to suggest the use of scientific equipment such as the telescope, microscope, and radiography in the making of art.[17] With Lucia, he experimented with the photogram; the process of exposing light-sensitive paper with objects laid upon it. His teaching practice covered a diverse range of media, including painting, sculpture, photography, photomontage, and metalworking.[8]
Depression era (1929–1937)
Moholy-Nagy left the Bauhaus in 1928 and established his own design studio in Berlin.[18] Marianne Brandt took over his role as Head of the Metal Workshop.[11] He separated from his first wife Lucia in 1929.[7]
An iconic achievement was Moholy-Nagy's construction of the Lichtrequisit einer elektrischen Bühne (Light Prop for an Electric Stage) (1928–1930), a device with moving parts designed to have light projected through it to create shifting light reflections and shadows on nearby surfaces.[19][20] It was made with the help of the Hungarian architect Istvan Seboek for the Deutscher Werkbund exhibition held in Paris during the summer of 1930; it was later dubbed the Light-Space Modulator and was seen as a pioneer achievement of kinetic sculpture using industrial materials like reflective metals and Plexiglas.[21] Given his interest in the light patterns it produced more than its appearance when viewed directly, it might more accurately be seen as one of the earliest examples of Light art. This was a form that he continued to develop in the 1940s in the United States, in Space Modulator (1939–1945), Papmac (1943), and B-10 Space Modulator (1942).[22]
Moholy-Nagy was photography editor of the Dutch avant-garde magazine International Revue i 10 from 1927 to 1929. He designed stage sets for successful and controversial operatic and theatrical productions, designed exhibitions and books, created ad campaigns, wrote articles, and made films. His studio employed artists and designers such as Istvan Seboek, György Kepes, and Andor Weininger.
In 1931, he met actress and scriptwriter Sibylle Pietzsch.[7] They married in 1932 and had two daughters, Hattula (born 1933), and Claudia (1936–1971).[23] Sibyl collaborated[citation needed] with her husband to make Ein Lichtspiel: schwarz weiss grau ("A Lightplay: Black White Gray"), a now-classic film based on the Light-Space Modulator.[24] She would also work with him on the films Gypsies and Berlin Still Life, and would remain with him for the rest of his life, later becoming an art and architectural historian.[23]
After the
In England, Moholy-Nagy formed part of the circle of émigré artists and intellectuals who based themselves in
Moholy-Nagy earned a living in London by taking on various commercial design jobs, including work for Imperial Airways and a shop display for men's underwear.[citation needed] György Kepes worked with him on various commercial assignments.[7]
He photographed contemporary architecture for the
In 1936, he was commissioned by fellow Hungarian film producer
In 1937 his artworks were included in the infamous "Degenerate art" exhibition held by Nazi Germany in Munich.[7]
Chicago years (1937–1946)
In 1937, on the recommendation of Walter Gropius,
However, the school lost the financial backing of its supporters after only a single academic year, and it closed in 1938. Moholy-Nagy resumed doing commercial design work, which he continued to do for the rest of his life.
Paepcke continued to support the artist, and in 1939 Moholy-Nagy opened the School of Design in Chicago.[7] He also started making static and mobile sculptures in transparent plastic, often accented with chromed metal.[7]
In 1940, the summer session of the School of Design was held at
In 1943, Moholy-Nagy began work on an account of his efforts to develop the curriculum of the School of Design.[7] It would be posthumously published in his 1947 book Vision in Motion, in collaboration with his art historian wife Sibyl.[23]
In 1944, the School of Design in Chicago became the
Moholy-Nagy was diagnosed with leukemia in 1945.[7] He became a naturalized American citizen in April 1946.[7] He continued to produce artworks in multiple media, to teach, and to attend conferences until he died of the disease in Chicago on November 24, 1946.[7] He was buried at Graceland Cemetery.
Legacy
The software company
Gallery
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Self portrait (1918)
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Ágota Fischhof (1918)
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Perpe (1919)
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Great machine of emotion (1920)
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Y (1920-1921)
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Circular segments (1921)
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Architecture (Eccentric Construction) (c. 1921)
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25 bankruptcy vultures (1922)
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Typographic collage (1922)
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Portrait of Lucia Moholy (1920s)
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Magazine cover for Der Sturm (1923)
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Untitled (1923)
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A.XX (1924)
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Hilla von Rebay (1924)
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Lucia (c. 1924–1928)
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Once a Chicken, Always a Chicken (1925)
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Cover of book published by the Bauhaus(1925)
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Z VII (1926)
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A 19 (1927)
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CH XI (1929)
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Pont Transbordeur, Marseille (1929)
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Erwin Piscator – Das politische Theater (1929)
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Construction AL6 (1933-1934)
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Space modulator (1938-1940)
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CH B3 (1941)
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CPL 4 (1941)
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Vertical black, red, and blue (1945)
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Nuclear I (1945)
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Nuclear II (1946)
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Revolving bars (1946)
Bibliography
- Moholy-Nagy, László. Malerei, Fotografie, Film, Munich: Albert Langen, 1925, 115 pp; 2nd ed., 1927, 140 pp.(German) PDF version: Bauhaus Bücher 8. Malerei, Fotografie, Film Archived April 4, 2015, at the Wayback Machine (Accessed: January 12, 2017)
- Moholy-Nagy, L. (1947). Vision in motion. P. Theobald.
- Moholy-Nagy, László; Hoffmann, Daphne M. (translator) (2005) The New Vision: fundamentals of Bauhaus design, painting, sculpture, and architecture. Dover, ISBN 9780486436937.
See also
- Artificial obsolescence
- Lumino kinetic art
- Otto Piene – kinetic sculptor directly inspired by Moholy-Nagy's work, including Light-Space Modulator
Notes
- ^ a b Schjeldahl, Peter (March 8, 1970). "Moholy-Nagy Champion of a Doomed and Heroic Cause". The New York Times. Retrieved March 25, 2019.
- ^ Team, Forvo. "László Moholy-Nagy pronunciation: How to pronounce László Moholy-Nagy in Hungarian". Forvo.com. Retrieved March 22, 2019.
- ^ a b c d e Schjeldahl, Peter (May 30, 2016). "A Bauhaus Artist's Modernist Utopia". The New Yorker. Conde-Nast. Retrieved March 28, 2019.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Biography". moholy-nagy.org. Moholy-Nagy Foundation. Retrieved March 28, 2019.
- ^ a b c d Chilvers, Ian & Glaves-Smith, John eds., Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art , Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. pp. 471–472
- ISBN 0-89236-324-X.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab "Chronology". Moholy-Nagy Foundation. Retrieved March 25, 2019.
- ^ ISBN 978-1599713571.
- ISBN 978-3791347349.
- ^ Bauhaus100. Preliminary course. Archived June 28, 2018, at the Wayback Machine(Accessed: February 7, 2017)
- ^ a b Bauhaus100. Metal workshop Archived October 3, 2018, at the Wayback Machine (Accessed: February 7, 2017)
- ^ Moholy, Lucia; Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895–1946 (1972), Marginalien zu Moholy-Nagy : documentarische ungereimtheiten... = Moholy-Nagy : marginal notes : documentary absurdities, Scherpe
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ Findeli, A. (1987). 'Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Alchemist of Transparency', in The Structurist, 0(27), 5.
- ^ Forbes, M. (2016). "What could I lose": The fate of Lucia Moholy. Michigan Quarterly Review, 55(1), 24-0_7.
- ^ László Moholy-Nagy 1925. Malerei, Photographie, Film. Munich: Albert Langen
- ^ Moholy-Nagy, László, (1932) The new vision, from material to architecture. New York: Brewer, Warren & Putnam.
- ^ Botar, O. (2004). Lszl Moholy-Nagys New Vision and the Aestheticization of Scientific Photography in Weimar Germany. Science in Context, 17(4), 525–556.
- ^ Bauhaus100. László Moholy-Nagy Archived October 3, 2018, at the Wayback Machine (Accessed: February 7, 2017)
- ^ Tate bio Retrieved January 17, 2011
- ^ Light Art Archived May 20, 2013, at the Wayback Machine Retrieved January 17, 2011
- ^ "From the Harvard Art Museums' collections: Light Prop for an Electric Stage (Light-Space Modulator)". harvardartmuseums.org. Harvard University. Retrieved March 22, 2019.
- ^ Moholy-Nagy, László |d 1895–1946 & Witkovsky, Matthew S., 1967–, (editor.) & Eliel, Carol S., 1955–, (editor.) & Vail, Karole P. B., (editor.) & Pâenichon, Sylvie, (writer of added text.) et al. (2016). Moholy-Nagy : future present (First edition). Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago.
- ^ a b c "Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Architectural Critic, Is Dead". The New York Times. January 9, 1971. Retrieved November 2, 2018.
- ^ "László Moholy-Nagy. A Lightplay: Black White Gray. c. 1926". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved April 11, 2019.
- ^ "History of Interaction Design". Retrieved March 22, 2019.
- ^ "Moholy-Nagy: Future Present". February 2, 2016. Retrieved July 27, 2016.
- ^ "The New Bauhaus". The New Bauhaus. Retrieved December 23, 2020.
References
- Moholy-Nagy, Lázló. Painting Photography Film. 1925. Trans. Katrin Schamun, Jillian DeMair. Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2019, ISBN 978-3-03778-587-4.
- Botar, Oliver A. I. Sensing the Future: Moholy-Nagy, die Medien und die Künste. Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2014, ISBN 978-3-03778-433-4.
- Blencowe, Chris and Judith Moholy's Edit. Zürich: Lars Müller Publishers, 2018, ISBN 978-3-03778-566-9.
- Botar, Oliver A. I. Technical Detours: The Early Moholy-Nagy Reconsidered. New York: Art Gallery of the CUNY Graduate Center, 2006.
- Borchardt-Hume, Achim. Albers and Moholy-Nagy: From the Bauhaus to the New World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006.
- Chilvers, Ian & Glaves-Smith, John eds., Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Art, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
- Engelbrecht, Lloyd C. Moholy-Nagy: Mentor to Modernism. Cincinnati, Flying Trapeze Press, 2009.
- Hight, Eleanor. Picturing Modernity: Moholy-Nagy and Photography in Weimar Germany. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1995.
- Lusk, Irene-Charlotte. Montagen ins Blaue: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Fotomontagen und -collagen 1922–1943. Gießen: Anabas, 1980.
- Margolin, Victor. The Struggle for Utopia: Rodchenko, Lissitzky, Moholy-Nagy, 1917–1946. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.
- Moholy-Nagy, Lázló. Painting Photography Film. 1925. Trans. Janet Seligman. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1973.
- Passuth, Krisztina. Moholy-Nagy. Trans. London: Thames and Hudson, 1985.
External links
External videos | |
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László Moholy-Nagy's Composition A.XX at Smarthistory |
- The Moholy-Nagy Foundation
- A Memory of Moholy-Nagy
- Biography of Moholy-Nagy
- Institute of Design web site (Chicago), founded by Moholy-Nagy as 'New Bauhaus in 1937
- Long 2006 article in The Guardian on Moholy-Nagy
- Moholy-Nagy and the Photogram
- Lightplay:Black White Gray
- Moholy-Nagy examples of work for London Transport Archived March 4, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
- László Moholy-Nagy. Photograms 1922–1943 Exhibition at Fundació Antoni Tàpies