László Moholy-Nagy

Born in 1895 in Hungary, he moved to Budapest to study law before WWI but after the war he enrolled to a private art school and started to exhibit in Hungary, in Vienna and Berlin, where he was influenced by Dada and Constructivism movements. In 1922 he married Lucia Moholy, who introduced him to photography and photograms. In 1923 he was invited to teach the foundation course at the Bauhaus. He collaborated closely with Gropius and they even co-authored educational books. Back in Berlin he worked as a designer for advertising, exhibitions, theatre design. He also became increasingly interested in motion picture and made a film called A Lightplay – black white gray. When the Nazi came to power he moved to Amsterdam and in 1935 to London, where he re-joined with his collaborator Gyorgy Kepes. Gropius invited him again to teach as a Director, this time at Harvard University. In 1939 he opened The School of Design in Chicago, later The Institute of Design. He continued to teach and to work on photography and filming. In 1946 he died, just before his Vision in Motion was published.

Lucia Moholy / Walter Gropius