László Moholy-Nagy (1895 – 1946) was a Hungarian painter, photographer and well-known professor at the Bauhaus school in Germany.
Moholy-Nagy photographed by his wife.
Born László Weisz to a Jewish-Hungarian family, Moholy-Nagy changed his surname to Nagy in honour of a friend of his mother’s who helped raise him and his brothers after their father left. He later added Moholy to his surname after the Hungarian town of Moholy where he grew up.
In 1913, Moholy-Nagy enrolled at the University of Budapest to study law but it wasn’t long before he was called up to join the Austro-Hungarian army during WWI. In 1915, whilst recovering from shell-shock in a field hospital, Moholy-Nagy began to create his first sketches using pencil and crayon. In 1917, he received a severe wound which mutilated his left thumb and during this time away from the battlefield, he began to paint watercolour and oil pencil portraits.
Early sketch by Moholy-Nagy whilst he was recovering.
After WWI, Moholy-Nagy returned to Budapest to finish his law degree but decided to give up this career in favour of becoming a painter.
In 1920, he moved to Berlin, Germany and in 1923, he replaced Johannes Itten as the professor of the foundation course at the Bauhaus. Whilst there, Moholy-Nagy taught in a diverse range of media including painting, sculpture, photography, photomontage and metalwork. He also experimented with new photographic processes including exposing light sensitive paper with objects overlaid on top of it – this was called a photogram.
Example of a photogram
Between 1922 – 1930, Moholy-Nagy created one of his most famous pieces – the ‘Light-Space Modulator’ which was seen as a pioneering piece of kinetic sculpture. It was designed, with the help of Hungarian architect Istvan Seboek, to have light shone through it to create moving light reflections and shadows on surrounding surfaces.
The ‘Light-Space Modulator’
In 1937, following the closure of the Bauhaus school, Moholy-Nagy moved to Chicago on the invitation of Walter Paepcke to become the director of the New Bauhaus, which closed the following year. He then opened his own Institute if Design in 1939 which became a part of the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1949.
László Moholy-Nagy died of leukaemia in 1946.