- 365
László Moholy-Nagy
Description
- László Moholy-Nagy
- SPACE MODULATOR
Signed and dated Moholy-Nagy 45 (in the Plexiglas lower right) and signed, dated and inscribed L. Moholy-Nagy / L. MOHOLY-NAGY / Space modulator 1945 / (Painting on Plexiglas) / (This painting requires a strong spotlight) (on the reverse)
Oil on incised Plexiglas
- 12 by 18 in.; 29.5 by 45.8 cm (Plexiglas)
- 22 by 27 1/2 in.; 56 by 70 cm (including artist's frame)
Provenance
The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York
Galerie Gmurzynska, Cologne
Private Collection, Atlanta
Sale: Lempertz, Cologne, December 4, 2004, lot 1192
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner
Exhibited
Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art; New York, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum; Santa Barbara Museum of Art; Berkeley, the University Art Museum at the University of California; Seattle Art Museum, László Moholy-Nagy, 1969-70, no. 60
Krefeld, Museum Haus Lange, Moholy-Nagy, 1987, no. 4
Cologne, Galerie Gmurzynska, Moholy-Nagy, 1991, no. 22
Marseille, Musée Cantini; Valencia, IVAM-Centro Julio González, László Moholy-Nagy, 1991, no. 37, illustrated p. 337
Catalogue Note
Having studied law in Hungary, the country of his birth, László Moholy-Nagy became an artist in 1917. In 1919, he discovered the work of the Russian constructivists El Lissitzky and Malevitch, and soon the Berlin Dada group, before joining the Bauhaus school, working in the metal workshop in 1923. Walter Gropius once described him as truly “Leonardian”, and it is true that he was highly skilled at all that he put his hand to. During five years at the Bauhaus, he worked on set designs for theatre and ballet, experimented with photography, typography, graphic design and mural painting. Leaving the Bauhaus in 1928, he worked as a stage designer in Berlin.
The present work dates from his American period, executed shortly before his early death in November 1946. Moholy-Nagy's interest in transparency and planar relationships is related to his affiliation with the Constructivists, and led him to produce “three-dimensional paintings” through experiments with plastics such as Plexiglas, as is the case in the present work. The three-dimensional aspect is achieved with the addition of a projected transparent plane which comes out from the white backing board towards the viewer. On this Plexiglas plane, the artist has incised and painted shapes of varying abstraction, with the intention of creating forms through the shadows cast on the white ground behind, hence the firmly-worded instruction on the back of the work: “This painting requires a strong spotlight.”
Fig. 2, László Moholy-Nagy in Bexhill, England, 1936.