Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
Biography of Constructivist Artist, Bauhaus,
Institute of Design.
MAIN A-Z INDEX - A-Z of ARTISTS
|
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
|
|
WORLDS BEST PAINTERS |
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946)Contents • Biography |
|
|
Among the most restlessly inventive of modern artists, the Hungarian painter, sculptor, designer and photographer Laszlo Moholy-Nagy practised a number of different types of art during his career, becoming a master of photography, typography, sculpture, painting, printmaking, and industrial design. He began his artistic career in Vienna and Berlin with abstract paintings, exploring both photomontage and collage art in the process. In the 1920s, he taught at the Bauhaus School, before turning to design for theatre sets and film. Along the way he experimented with Kinetic art, as well as fine art photography, which he established - in his first Bauhaus book - to be as equally creative as fine art painting. (But see: Is Photography Art?) After emigrating to Chicago in 1937, he opened his highly influential Institute of Design. His artistic philosophy - heavily shaped by Constructivism - advocated the integration of technology and industry into the arts, a viewpoint fully explained in his book Vision in Motion (1947). Now viewed as an important figure in modern art during the inter-war years, he is considered to be an important influence on post-war art education in America. In fact, due to his books, his influence on art schools and design teaching extended worldwide, following the lead given by El Lissitzky (1890-1941), whose own articles, lectures and publications helped to disseminate his thought to the widest possible audience. |
|
WORLD'S TOP PAINTING
|
|
|
|
Born Laszlo Weisz to a Jewish family living in the farming town of Bacs-Borsod, in southern Hungary, he later replaced his Jewish surname with the Magyar surname of his mother's Hungarian friend Nagy, who supported the family and helped raise Moholy-Nagy after their father ran off. The word Moholy (after the Hungarian town Mohol in which he grew up) was added later. He attended academic high school in the neighbouring town of Szeged, and in 1913 began law studies at the University of Budapest, only to interrupt them when war broke out the following year, in order to serve in the Austro-Hungarian army. The daily sketches he made of life at the front revealed an obvious talent for drawing, and he determined to become a painter. In 1917, while recovering from a serious wound in Budapest, he founded the artists' group MA (Today) with Ludwig Kassak and others, and founded a literary magazine called Jelenkor (The Present Age). By now an ardent communist - though not a party member, due to his bourgeois background - he took classes with the Hungarian Fauve artist Robert Bereny, and wrote articles for the MA periodical Horizont. His style of art remained highly experimental during this period, ranging from landscapes with bright colours in the style of Hungarian folk art, to more technical subjects executed in the idiom of Cubism. Following the defeat of the Communist Regime in 1919, he left Budapest for Vienna, intending to find his feet within the city's avant-garde art scene. But finding it too tame, he moved to Berlin the following year. |
|
|
|
|
Berlin Dada - Collage - Photograms It was in Berlin that Moholy-Nagy's creative thoughts began to crystallize. He started writing for several important art magazines, co-edited The Book of the New Artist (Das Buch neuer Kunstler), a volume of essays on art, and began creating collages, influenced by his new contacts in Berlin Dada, including such innovative figures as Raoul Hausmann (1886-1971) and Hanna Hoch (1889-1979) through whom he was introduced to the latest techniques in typography and photomontage. In addition, stimulated by the photographic talents of his first wife Lucia, whom he met in Berlin in 1920, he experimented with 'photograms' (photographs in which light-sensitive paper is exposed directly to light, without using a camera), which allowed him to explore the relationship between light and shade, transparency and form. His work in this field ranks him among the greatest photographers of the early 20th century. [Note: For a short account of the early inventions of camera art, please see: the History of Photography (c.1800-1900).]
El Lissitzky and Constructivism In 1921, he met the Communist painter and designer El Lissitzky, who was in Berlin to supervise an exhibition of Russian art, and exchanged ideas on the latest abstract art and designwork taking place in Moscow. Lissitzky was associated with both Constructivism and (his version of) Suprematism, both of which reflected his view that artists should be more like designers, in pursuit of socially beneficial change. As a fellow communist, Moholy-Nagy wholeheartedly agreed, although he was drawn more to the more scientific Constructivism of Vladimir Tatlin (1885-1953), than the mystical Suprematist art of Kasimir Malevich (1878-1935). He certainly believed in the Constructivist credo that art was a potent force which could teach workers to live in harmony with new technology. The following year, in response to his growing reputation as a painter, Herwarth Walden gave him his first one-man show at the Sturm Gallery, Berlin. In 1923, he received an invitation from Walter Gropius (1883-1969) to teach at the Bauhaus School of architecture and industrial design, in Weimar. He replaced Johannes Itten (1888-1967) as the instructor of the foundation course (Vorkurs), and his arrival signalled a shift away from individual artistic feelings, towards a greater integration of technology, art and industry. He also took over from Paul Klee (1879-1940) in the metal workshop, and taught students how to make a type of lighting fixture that is still in use today. During his tenure, he also co-edited the journal Bauhaus with Gropius, who became his mentor and lifelong friend, and co-published the series of 14 books (Bauhausbucher) reflecting the aesthetics of the Bauhaus institution. Moholy-Nagy also designed the typography for the Bauhausbucher and wrote two of the best art books himself: Painting, Photography, and Film (1924), and From Material to Architecture (1929) (translated in 1932 as The New Vision). In 1928, political pressure led to his resignation from the school, whereupon he returned to Berlin and began designing stage sets for successful theatrical productions, as well as more controversial events at Berlin's experimental opera house (Krolloper). In addition - in conjunction with artists and designers such as Istvan Seboek, Gyorgy Kepes and Andor Weininger - he created a range of designs for exhibitions and books, as well as advertisements, wrote numerous articles and collaborated in the production of several films. In addition to his designwork, he was Photography Editor of the avant-garde Dutch periodical International Revue 10 until 1929. During the period 1927-36, he also made 11 films, notably Black-White-Gray (1930). In 1932, he and his wife Lucia separated, and he married Sibyl, whom he had met during his filmwork. In the same year, he joined the Paris Group Abstraction-Creation, which specialized in concrete art in sculpture as well as painting. One of his most interesting projects was the construction of a device with moving parts (later called a 'Light-Space Modulator'), which, when light was shone through it, created mobile light reflections on nearby surfaces. Made for an exhibition of the German Werkbund - part of the crafts industry in Germany, which was modelled on the English Arts and Crafts Movement - held in Paris during the summer of 1930, it is regarded as an early prototype of kinetic art. Leaves Germany Then, in 1937, at the invitation of Walter Paepcke, the Chairman of the Container Corporation of America, he was recruited (on the recommendation of Gropius) to become the director of the short-lived New Bauhaus, in Chicago. A year later the school went bust, but in 1939 Paepcke helped Moholy-Nagy to establish his own Institute of Design, which in 1949 became a part of the Illinois Institute of Technology, and the first school in America to offer a PhD in design. (See also: American architecture.) Unfortunately, Moholy-Nagy never lived to see it. He died of leukemia in 1946, not long after receiving American citizenship. Moholy-Nagy's influence on American art should not be underestimated. He helped to inject a modern aesthetic into American design, especially in his use of modern materials and technology. In addition, notwithstanding the important contributions of Alfred Stieglitz (1864-1946) and Edward Steichen (1879-1973) his photographs, photomontages and writings on the subject, helped to establish photography as a fine art on a par with drawing and painting. His contribution to plastic art, through his wood, metal and plexiglass sculpture, was also significant. Works by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy are in the collections of several of the world's best art museums, including: the Solomon R Guggenheim Museum, New York; Museum of Modern Art (MOMA), New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC; Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge Mass; Addison Gallery of American Art, Andover; Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago; Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid; National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome; Museum Ludwig, Cologne; Nationalgalerie, Berlin; Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt; Tate Modern, London; and many others. In Budapest, Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design is named in his honour, while in 2003, the Moholy-Nagy Foundation, Inc. was established as a source of data about his life and works. |
|
• For biographies of other Hungarian
artists, see: Famous Painters.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF VISUAL ARTISTS |
