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Biography of László Moholy-NagyName: László Moholy-NagyBirth Date: July 20, 1895 Death Date: November 24, 1946 Place of Birth: Bacsbarsod, Hungary Nationality: Hungarian Gender: Male Occupations: painter, designer, teacher László Moholy-Nagy The Hungarian painter, designer, and teacher László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946) was one of the leading figures in the Bauhaus and was highly instrumental in bringing its ideas to the United States.László Moholy-Nagy was born on July 20, 1895, in Bacsbarsod. He studied law before becoming interested in painting. In 1919 he discovered the work of the Russian constructivists El Lissitzky and Kasimir Malevich, whose lifelong influence can be seen in Moholy-Nagy's paintings with the characteristic severe patterns of rectangles and other geometric shapes scattered sparsely over a plain background.In 1921 Moholy-Nagy moved to Berlin. His paintings were now completely nonobjective, and he began to study the function and effect of light, which became one of his main continuing interests. Combined with this was his enthusiasm for the potential uses of the new plastic materials. Like Marcel Duchamp, he began to question the traditional involvement of the artist's hand …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…Chicago, where he directed the New Bauhaus for a year and then set up his own School of Design, which he ran on Bauhaus principles until his death in Chicago on Nov. 24, 1946. An extraordinarily idealistic man, he passionately believed in his own concepts of design and teaching and worked feverishly to accomplish his aims. It is in large part owing to him that the Bauhaus ideas so thoroughly infused American design. Associated Organizations Further Reading Moholy-Nagy's own writings are very epigrammatic and perhaps provide a more exciting picture of the potential of his ideas than do his artistic productions. His The New Vision (1928) and Vision in Motion (1947) give a fine sense of his liveliness of mind and wide-ranging interests. An extremely touching and very informative book is the biography by his wife, Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Moholy-Nagy: Experiment in Totality (1950; 2d ed. 1969).Kaplan, Louis, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy: biographical writings, Durham: Duke University Press, 1995. |