László Moholy-Nagy
1895–1946
Introduction
László Moholy-Nagy (; Hungarian: [ˈlaːsloː ˈmoholiˌnɒɟ]; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the integration of technology and industry into the arts. The art critic Peter Schjeldahl called him "relentlessly experimental" because of his pioneering work in painting, drawing, photography, collage, sculpture, film, theater, and writing.
He also worked collaboratively with other artists, including his first wife Lucia Moholy, Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer, and Herbert Bayer. His largest accomplishment may be the Institute of Design in Chicago, which survives today as part of the Illinois Institute of Technology, and art historian Elizabeth Siegel called "his overarching work of art". He also wrote books and articles advocating a utopian type of high modernism.
Wikidata identifier
Q160448
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License . Accessed July 20, 2025.
Introduction
Moholy-Nagy became part of the Russian Avant-Garde in Odessa as a painter in 1918. From 1919 to 1920 he lived in Vienna, where he painted, wrote and associated with the Dadaists. He then moved to Berlin in 1920 where he met Lucia Moholy, whom he married the following year. In 1922, he and Lucia began working with photograms. From 1923 to 1928 he was the founder and director of the photographic department of the Bauhaus in Weimar and Dessau, Germany, and he moved to Dessau in 1925, where he worked on films and photomontages. In 1937, Moholy-Nagy emigrated to the United States, and in the same year founded and directed the New Bauhaus School in Chicago. In 1939 it closed, and he founded the School of Design which was renamed the Institute of Design in 1944, and became part of the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1949. Moholy-Nagy became a naturalized American citizen in April of 1946, and dies in November of that year, of Leukemia.
Country of birth
Hungary
Roles
Artist, author, cinematographer, collagist, designer, educator, graphic artist, interior decorator, painter, photographer, poet, scenographer, sculptor, teacher, theatrical painter, theorist
ULAN identifier
500004274
Names
László Moholy-Nagy, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Moholy-Nagy, Ladislas Moholy-Nagy, Ladislaus Moholy-Nagy, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy, Lʹaszlʹo Moholy-Nagy, Ladislaus Moholy- Nagy, Laszlo Nagy, László Nagy, László Moholy- Nagy, Lʹaszlʹo Moholy- Nagy, László Weisz
Information from the Getty Research Institute's Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License. Accessed July 20, 2025.
