László Moholy-Nagy

László Moholy-Nagy - AL 3, 1926 - oil, industrial paints and pencil on aluminum

Olly and Dolly Sisters, ca.1925

Vintage gelatin silver print

László Moholy-Nagy

I found it this image on pinterest some years ago and delighted in its whimsy. I use it on my 'conact' page. Only now did I explore its deeper origins. Turns out it's a piece by Hungarian artist László Moholy-Nagy (1845-1946), one of the greatest influences on post-war art education in the United States.

He was a designer, filmmaker, painter, sculptor and photographer, as well as a theoretician. According to the website The Art Story, László believed that after being fractured by modernity, in order to feel whole again, artists needed to harness the potential of new technologies: 'Artists should transform into designers and through specialization and experimentation, find the means to answer humanity's needs.'

His work is evidence of his enduring interest in space, time and light. With regards to photography he said: "The enemy of photography is the convention, the fixed rules of 'how to do'. The salvation of photography comes from the experiment." While I can't say his photographs command my attention, I was quite taken with his paintings. They have a quality to them not unlike the paintings of Hilma Af Klint, however they feel more calculated and precise; they capture something pristinely beautiful reflecting the world of logic and measurement, rather than the unseen, abstract world of spirit which af Klint so mesmerizingly portrayed. Both were rule breakers in their own right, finding their own methods to channel the the unseen creative force into something of benefit to humanity.

- FMH

AL 3, 1926

Oil, industrial paints, and pencil on aluminum

40 x 40 cm

László Moholy-Nagy