Getty Museum

[Double Portrait of Gret Palucca]

Date

1928

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

> Gret Palucca was a modern dancer celebrated for her athleticism and dramatic improvisational style. In 1924 she married Friedrich Bienert and founded her own school in Dresden to train teachers and gymnasts. Through her husband she became acquainted with the Bauhaus community. > > Palucca eventually performed on the Bauhaus stage on April 27, 1927. Like theater, dance was considered a medium with great potential for new expression. Palucca was described as a “dance artist”; she was celebrated by many artists and writers and often photographed in midair. László Moholy-Nagy pictures her at rest and doubles her image by posting together two photographs, creating a Siamese twin effect. For someone as concerned with motion as Moholy, this is a curiously static treatment. > > In 1939, the National Socialists forced Palucca to close her school. She would go on to successfully rebuild her career and reopen her school after World War II. > > Adapted from Katherine Ware, *László Moholy-Nagy*, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995), 74. © 1995 The J. Paul Getty Museum.

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