LÁSZLÓ MOHOLY-NAGY: Artist of the Future PART 2

PART 2 with Daniel and Andreas Hug & Oliver Botar

László Moholy-Nagy’s work is often associated with the Bauhaus years, photography, and the New Vision. Yet the second half of his life shows how far his ideas travelled beyond Dessau — and how they continued to evolve across different countries, media, and institutions. After leaving the Bauhaus, Moholy worked in Berlin as a freelance graphic and stage designer before the political situation in Germany forced him into exile.

This second part of the bauhaus faces episode follows Moholy first to the Netherlands, then to England, and finally to Chicago, where he became director of the New Bauhaus and explores Moholy not only as a former Bauhaus master, but as an artist, educator, and thinker whose ideas helped bring Bauhaus principles into a new international context. At the centre of Moholy’s work remained a profound interest in light, movement, space, new materials, and human perception.

Once again, Moholy’s grandsons Daniel and Andreas Hug, together with the Canadian art historian Oliver Botar, guide us through his life, work, and legacy.

---

SHOW NOTES bauhausfaces.com | @bauhausfacespodcast | YouTube | Spotify | Apple Podcasts

Moholy-Nagy Foundation

FILMS AND LITERATURE László Moholy-Nagy: Ein Lichtspiel: Schwarz Weiß Grau (Light-Play: Black White Grey, 1930, https://moholy-nagy.org/art-database-detail/12

Alexander Korda: Things to Come (1936) H.G. Wells War film | A hundred years ahead of its time „Things to Come“, https://youtu.be/iwTDqHrJ4vc?si=4azQFqrd38fVk3p9

Sibyl Moholy-Nagy: Moholy-Nagy: Experiment in Totality, 1950

Oliver A. I. Botar: Sensing the Future: Moholy-Nagy, Media and the Arts, 2014

Hilde Heynen: Sibyl Moholy-Nagy: Architecture, Modernism and its Discontents (Bloomsbury Studies in Modern Architecture), London 2021

CHAPTER IMAGES Cover: Self portrait of László Moholy-Nagy, 1940s, Moholy Nagy Foundation

1 Self portrait of László Moholy-Nagy, 1940s, Collection of the Moholy-Nagy estate, © Moholy Nagy Foundation 2 Portraits of László and Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Germany, 1930s, Collection of the Moholy-Nagy estate, © Moholy Nagy Foundation 3 László Moholy-Nagy: Cover of sales leaflet for Marcel Breuer’s Isokon Long Chair, 1937, Pritchard Papers, University of East Anglia, © Moholy Nagy Foundation 4 László Moholy-Nagy: László Moholy-Nagy: Quickly away, thanks to pneumatic doors, Advertisement for London Underground, 1937, The Museum of Modern Art, The Museum of Modern Art, © Moholy Nagy Foundation 5 László Moholy-Nagy: Special Effect for “Things to Come”, 1936, https://www.artsy.net/artwork/laszlo-moholy-nagy-special-effect-for-things-to-come, © Moholy Nagy Foundation 6 László Moholy-Nagy lecturing at Mills College, California, 1940, Collection of the Moholy-Nagy estate, © Moholy Nagy Foundation 7 László Moholy-Nagy: Space Modulation with Highlights, 1942, RISD Museum, Providence, © Moholy Nagy Foundation 8 László Moholy-Nagy: Leuk 4, 1945, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, © Moholy Nagy Foundation 9 László Moholy-Nagy: Photographs, 1937–1946, 35mm color slides, Estate chromogenic prints, Collection of the Moholy-Nagy estate, © Moholy Nagy Foundation 10 László Moholy-Nagy: Double Loop, 1946, Plexiglas, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, © Moholy Nagy Foundation 11 László Moholy-Nagy: Composition, 1946, Collection of the Moholy-Nagy estate, © Moholy Nagy Foundation