LÁSZLÓ MOHOLY-NAGY (1894-1946)

Untitled photogram, Dessau, 1925

Details
LÁSZLÓ MOHOLY-NAGY (1894-1946)
Untitled photogram, Dessau, 1925
gelatin silver print
9 3/8 x 7in. (23.8 x 17.8cm.)
Provenance
The Estate of László Moholy-Nagy;
to William Larson, Philadelphia; acquired before 1983
Literature
Moholy-Nagy - The Photograms: Catalogue raisonné. Edited by Renate Heyne and Floris M. Neusüss, in collaboration with Hattula Moholy-Nagy. Stuttgart: Hatje Cantz, 2009, cat. no. fgm 421

Brought to you by

Elizabeth Eichholz
Elizabeth Eichholz

Check the condition report or get in touch for additional information about this

If you wish to view the condition report of this lot, please sign in to your account.

Sign in
View condition report

Lot Essay

Moholy-Nagy's lifetime fascination with light led him to experiment with painting, sculpture, cinema and photography. He believed that the manipulation of light through any means could lead to new ways of seeing that would liberate us from traditional pictorial conventions. Turning to experiment with photograms beginning in 1922 he dispensed not only with brushwork in painting but the intervention of the lens in photography.

A photogram is made by placing objects on a sheet of photographic paper. Where the paper is uncovered, it received maximum exposure to light and the tone is darkest. Where the paper received no exposure to light, the tone is lightest. Middle tones result from the relative amount of exposure between those extremes.

One of the objects used to make the present photogram is a clothes pin which clearly dates it to 1925 when he was working in Dessau at the Bauhaus.

More from The Miller-Plummer Collection of Photographs

View All
View All