László Moholy-Nagy

Lightplay: Black-White-Grey (excerpt) by László Moholy-Nagy from 1932.

László Moholy-Nagy was a Hungarian painter and photographer (born 1895) who has highly influenced generations of artists with his work and as a professor at the Bauhaus school.

This short film 'Lightplay: Black-White-Grey' is "derived from Moholy Nagy's kinetic sculpture 'The Light Space-Modulator'."


At the Bauhaus Moholy-Nagy taught in such diverse medias as painting, sculpture, photography, photo-montage and metal.

He was very much influenced by constructivism (effectively moving the Bauhaus teachings from expressionism to constructivism upon becoming head of its foundation course) and "a strong advocate of the integration of technology and industry into the arts".

As many of those associated with the Bauhaus school (and also due to the fact that he was Jewish) Moholy-Nagy had to leave Germany in the 1930s. He settled in England and later in the US where he became director of the New Bauhaus.


"Throughout his career, [Moholy-Nagy] became proficient and innovative in the fields of photography, typography, sculpture, painting, printmaking, and industrial design.

One of his main focuses was on photography. He coined the term 'the New Vision' for his belief that photography could create a whole new way of seeing the outside world that the human eye could not."


UPDATE: You can read and see more about László Moholy-Nagy here, here, here and here for example.


First quote from ubuweb ; remaining quotes from wikipedia entry for László Moholy-Nagy.