The Photograms. A Catalogue Raisonné

László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946) was one of the most internationally influential teachers at the Bauhaus. It is essentially owing to his effective artistic and journalistic skills that photography became an integral part of modern art in the twenties. He “discovered” the aesthetic possibilities of photograms in 1922 and continued his inventive work with them until 1943, turning them into icons of the medium that are still waiting to be fully brought to light.

This catalogue raisonné, meticulously edited by photography expert Renate Heyne, is the first to feature all of the known works—close to 450 of them—in chronological order. Until now, most of them had only been published in history books and auction catalogues. This volume contains far more information than is usually found in a classic descriptive catalogue of works: it explains the artistic, technical, and biographical circumstances under which the photograms were created, examines them in relation to other areas of Moholy-Nagy’s work, and analyzes them at length on the basis of selected pieces. A biography and a bibliography of the photograms round off this catalogue raisonné.