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Laszlo
Moholy-Nagy

Hungary • 1895−1946

Biography and information

Laszlo Mohy-Nagy (Hungarian Moholy-Nagy László, July 20, 1895, Borsod, Austria-Hungary - November 24, 1946, Chicago) was an artist, photographer, teacher and art theorist who was born and studied in Hungary. Moreover, his professional development is associated primarily with Germany, and later - with America. A great experimenter and researcher, Moholy-Nagy was one of the main teachers of the German school Bauhaus and the founder of the Chicago School of Design.
Laszlo Nagy came of age just on the eve of the First World War - and a two-year service in an artillery regiment drastically changed his life. Leaving for the war as a law student, Laszlo returns to a peaceful life with a crippled left hand, formed world views and a serious intention to become an artist. He adds a prefix to the name of his mother, Nagy, after the name of the city Mokhoy, where Laszlo and his brothers accepted into his house and raised his uncle. He enters the evening art school and buys an old camera from a friend-photographer. Two of these events identified the main activities of Mohoi-Nagy.
After moving to Vienna and then to Berlin, he enjoys the most avant-garde techniques and ideas: he dreams of a new society together with constructivists, paints expressionist style, makes sculptures made of wood, metal and glass, photo collages and photograms. It is not surprising that at one of the exhibitions, where the works of Mohoi-Nadia were presented, the director of the Bauhaus Walter Groppius, the revolutionary school of construction and artistic design, draws attention to him. The artist is offered to lead the workshop on working with metal. Among the goals of the Bauhaus are: the unity of art and technology for the sake of creating a new society and serving humanity. And this ideally coincides with the personal hopes and searches of Mohy-Nadia.
When Hitler came to power in Germany, the avant-garde artist Mohoi-Nagy was forced to seek work in Holland, then in London, until he finally received an offer to establish a design school in Chicago, in which the educational system would be built according to the principles adopted in Bauhaus.

Features of the artist Laszlo Mohy-Nadia: light, transparent materials, oil on glass and oil on metal, multiple exposition, photograms, collages, plexiglass, abstract films and abstract theater, and even kinetic sculpture - Laszlo Mohoy-Nagy experimented with all possible materials and techniques. In this technique, traditionally associated with figurative art, he uses to build non-objective compositions. And in arbitrary moving shadows, which the engineering kinetic sculpture designed by the artist casts aside, tries to see definite images: landscapes, factories and working machines. He considered the narrow specialization for the artist obsolete: erasing the lines between sculpture, cinema, painting and photography.

Famous works of Laszlo Mohy-Nadia: "Light-Space Modulator", "A 18", "A 19".