Label
Loszlo Moholy-Nagy
American (born Hungary), 1895-1946
Untitled, 1941
Screenprint
Collection of DePaul University, Art Endowment Fund
In 1937, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy left a successful design practice in London, came to Chicago, and established an institution that permanently altered the trajectory of both the teaching and practice of photography. The New Bauhaus, later renamed the Institute of Design (ID), eventually affiliated with the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in 1949.
While at the Bauhaus in Germany and in his private design practice, Moholy maintained a fascination with the expressive potential of the photographic medium. Photography had not been a part of the curriculum at the Bauhaus in Germany, but as director of the New Bauhaus in Chicago Moholy seized his opportunity and incorporated photography into a larger design curriculum. He encouraged students to consider the photographic image in terms of light and self-expression rather than equipment and document.