László Moholy-Nagy

Catalogue of the Schirn Kunsthalle's 2009 retrospective, the first comprehensive survey of László Moholy-Nagy in nearly two decades, covering painting, photography, film, sculpture, stage design and typography from every phase of his career.

Edited by Ingrid Pfeiffer and Max Hollein, the book presents around 170 works in 220 illustrations, with essays by Ulrike Gärtner, Kai-Uwe Hemken, Gerald Köhler, Herbert Molderings, Pfeiffer and Joyce Tsai on the artist's Bauhaus years, his advertising graphics and the debate over 'Bauhaus typography', his photograms and photosculptures, and the late paintings on plastics. A section documents the reconstruction of the Raum der Gegenwart (Room of the Present), the multimedia room Moholy-Nagy designed in 1930 for the Provinzialmuseum Hannover but never built, realised in 2009 for the exhibition.

Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946), Hungarian-born painter, photographer and theorist, taught the preliminary course and the metal workshop at the Bauhaus from 1923 to 1928, worked in Berlin and London, and founded the New Bauhaus in Chicago in 1937. The exhibition was shown at the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt from 8 October 2009 to 7 February 2010; Prestel issued the catalogue in English and German editions.