Picturing Modernism; and Laszlo Moholy Nagy: Biographical Writings

by Eleanor M. Hight

Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1995. Louis Kaplan, Laszlo Moholy Nagy: Biographical Writings (Durham NC: Duke University Press, 1995).
ISBN0-8223-1592-0.

Reviewed by Roy R. Behrens

Publication of these two books marks the centenary of the birth of Laszlo Moholy Nagy (1895-1946), the Hungarian graphic designer, photographer, and art theorist, who taught in Germany at the Bauhaus in the 1920s, then moved to Chicago in 1937 to establish the New Bauhaus. Dispite the postmodernist tendency toward form bashing, he continues to be influential in design, art, and photography. As Richard Kostelanetz wrote, Moholy's "Vision in Motion" (published posthumously in 1946) is "the single most insightful survey of avant-garde modernism" and "an Artist's book of the highest order, demonstrating that few practitioners of any art ever wrote as well or as truly about their own esthetic aspirations."In other words, for anyone audacious enough to write about Moholy, his own writings are a hard act to follow. While both these books are deserving attempts to assess his legacy, Hite's book is by far more engaging, comprehensive, and richly-illustrated. (Review reprinted from Ballast Quarterly Review, Vol 12 No 1, Fall 1996)