Getty Museum

Der wohlwollende Herr

Date

1924

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

> In the spring of 1923 László Moholy-Nagy was invited to join the faculty of the Bauhaus in Weimar, an innovative state-supported school of art, architecture, and design under the direction of Walter Gropius. In this stimulating environment he produced many photographic works. This piece first appeared in the 1925 book *Die Bühne im Bauhaus* (The theater of the Bauhaus), written by Moholy-Nagy, Oskar Schlemmer, and Farkas Molnár. Indeed, the graduated platform at the bottom of the composition suggests a stage. In his essay in the book, “Theater, Zirkus, Varieté” (Theater, circus, variety), Moholy-Nagy envisions drama as a primarily visual experience, perhaps accompanied by tones or music, but liberated from text. The actor, instead of being the focus of a production, is of equal importance with other dramatic elements—light, space, sound, and motion—and can be replaced by puppets or mechanical figures. Thus circus performances and variety shows came closest to his conception of the ideal theater. > > In its juxtaposition of figures, this work reflects Moholy’s ideas about the simultaneity of new theater and a closer interaction between audience and performer, although in a purely exaggerated, suggestive manner. From a visual standpoint, the abstract backdrop is in a style related to his Constructivist paintings of this period; the dynamic lines prefigure the drawing he would use to activate many of his montages. > > Katherine Ware, *László Moholy-Nagy*, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995), 16. © 1995 The J. Paul Getty Museum.

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