Laszlo Moholy-nagy Biography
László Moholy-Nagy (Bácsborsód, 20 July 1895 – Chicago, 24 November 1946) was a Hungarian-born American painter and photographer, an exponent of the Bauhaus. Born in Bácsborsód, Hungary. In 1913 he studied law at the University of Science in Budapest, where he interrupted his studies the following year to join the Austro-Hungarian army. In 1917, while recovering from a wound, he founded the artistic group MA in Szeged, Hungary, together with Lajos Kassák and other people, as well as the literary magazine "Jelenkor". In 1919, after obtaining a law degree, he left for Vienna, where he collaborated with the MA Horizont periodical. In 1920 he moved to Berlin, where he began creating Dada photograms and collages. At the beginning of the twenties he collaborated with numerous important art magazines and edited with Kassák Das Buch neuer Künstler, a volume of poetry and essays on art. In 1921 he met El Lissitzky in Germany and went to Paris for the first time. His first solo exhibition was organized by Herwarth Walden in 1922 in the Galerie Der Sturm in Berlin. During a solo show of his paintings at the Der Sturm gallery in Berlin, the architect Walter Gropius was so impressed by his works on display that he invited him to collaborate at the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1923. The most significant period of his activity began which would leave a trace especially in the history of graphics. It was in this period that he began to be interested in editorial and theatrical design, editing and designing the Bauhausbücher series published by the school with Walter Gropius, becoming the representative par excellence of Bauhaus photography. He owes this fame to his publication Pittura Fotografia Film, eighth volume of the "Bauhaus Books", which came out in 1925, becoming the first fundamental text on photography published by the Bauhaus. Moholy-Nagy moved with the Bauhaus to Dessau in 1925 and taught there until 1928, when he returned to Berlin to concentrate on theater and film scenography. Two years later he participated in the "Internationale Werkbund Ausstellung" in Paris. In 1934, the year in which an important retrospective of his works was held at the Stedelijk Museum, he moved to Amsterdam. In 1935 he escaped from the Nazi threat and moved to London, where he worked as a designer for various companies, collaborated on various films and frequented well-known names in the industry such as: Naum Gabo, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore. In 1937 he was appointed director of the New Bauhaus in Chicago, which closed after less than a year for financial reasons. Moholy-Nagy did not lose heart and after just a year he founded his own School of Design in Chicago in 1938 and in 1940 he organized the first summer courses in Illinois. In 1941 he joined the American Abstract Artists group and in 1944 he became a full American citizen. He died on November 24, 1946 in Chicago.
