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Untitled

1939

László Moholy-Nagy

(American, 1895–1946)
Culture
America
Medium
gelatin silver print, photogram
Measurements
Image: 50.6 x 40.3 cm (19 15/16 x 15 7/8 in.); Matted: 66 x 55.9 cm (26 x 22 in.)
Credit Line
Andrew R. and Martha Holden Jennings Fund 1992.10
Copyright
© Estate of László Moholy-Nagy / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
This artwork is known to be under copyright.
Location
Not on view
Print

Description

Sometimes the most literal photographs can be the most abstract. The influential painter, designer, photographer, filmmaker, theorist, and teacher László Moholy-Nagy was one of numerous émigré artists who arrived in the United States in the 1930s. In 1922 he began producing photograms, a process in which objects are placed directly onto light-sensitive paper and exposed to light. Here he has intuitively arranged wire, mesh, string, and thin plastic templates with geometric cut-outs to form an abstract, diagonal composition. Is it an inventory of works found in an artist’s studio or a mysterious dreamscape suggesting a world beyond time and place?
A vertically oriented, abstract, black-and-white photogram depicts a collection of white gridlike patterns of shapes layered over each other on a black background. The photogram, made by placing objects onto a light-sensitive material and exposing it to light, creates an X-ray-like quality. Diagonally from the lower left to upper right corner are overlaid sheets with rows of square and circle cutouts and mesh. A swirl of string curls behind the sheets, glowing white against the background.

Untitled

1939

László Moholy-Nagy

(American, 1895–1946)
America

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