Albers and Moholy-Nagy : From the Bauhaus to the New World

by Achim Borchardt-Hume, editor; Contributions by Hal Foster, Hattula Moholy-Nagy,Terence A. Senter. Nicholas Fox Weber, and Michael White

• ISBN13: 9780300120325
• ISBN10: 030012032X
• Format: Trade Book
• Copyright: 2006-07-24
• Publisher: Yale University Press

Summary

This beautifully illustrated book highlights the contrasts and correspondences in the lives and work of two of Modernism's greatest innovators, Josef Albers (18881976) and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (18951947). Beginning in the 1930s, Albers and Moholy-Nagy each developed a rigorously abstract language that condensed art to its visual fundamentals: line, color, texture, light, and form. This language experienced a creative explosion during their Bauhaus years, when both artists moved freely between media and disciplines. Essays by leading scholars follow the artists' separate paths through to their emigration to the United States, where each continued to push tirelessly the conventions of artistic practiceAlbers at Black Mountain College in North Carolina and then at Yale University, and Moholy-Nagy in Chicago at the New Bauhaus School and the Institute of Design. As highly influential teachers, Albers and Moholy-Nagy became important catalysts for the transmission of Modernist ideas from Europe to America. Spanning four decades and featuring works in a variety of media, including painting, collage, glass, moving sculpture, photography, film, furniture, and graphic design,Albers and Moholy-Nagyreveals for the first time the range of achievement of these two important figures and is essential to our understanding of the evolution of Modernism.

Author Biography

Achim Borchardt-Hume is Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Tate Modern. Hal Foster is Townsend Martin ’17 Professor and Chair of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University. Hattula Moholy-Nagy is the daughter of László Moholy-Nagy. Terence A. Senter organized the first major Moholy-Nagy exhibition in the United Kingdom in 1980. Nicholas Fox Weber is Executive Director of The Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. Michael White is lecturer in the history of art at the University of York.

Table of Contents

From the Bauhaus: Plates	p. 9
Two Bauhaus Histories	p. 66
Mechano-Facture: Dada/Constructivism and the Bauhaus	p. 79
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy: The Transitional Years	p. 85
The Bauhaus Idea in America	p. 92
'I Want the Eyes to Open': Josef Albers in the New World	p. 103
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy: Transnational	p. 111
To the New World: Plates	p. 117
Artists' Writings	p. 154
Chronology	p. 163
Footnotes	p. 170
Selected Bibliography	p. 176
List of Exhibited Works	p. 179
Index	p. 188
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