Getty Museum

Fotogramm (negativ)

Date

1928

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

Object ID

9ad583ee-5cd8-4123-aae5-8ac4bf980cda

> For a period of time beginning around 1927, László Moholy-Nagy placed less emphasis on painting and instead concentrated his efforts on photography and writing. In his 1929 article “Fotogramm und Grenzgebiete” (Photogram and frontier zones), published in the Dutch journal *i10,* he declares that the central issue of future visual creation will be “creation with direct light,” relegating traditional “manual pigment painting” to a historical and educational role. With photography the artist could draw with light, rather than pigment, on the tabula rasa of photosensitive paper, as described in his 1928 essay “Fotografie ist Lichtgestaltung” (Photography is creation with light). This joining of science and art is particularly magical in this composition, in which the floating forms radiate against the velvety darkness. > > Katherine Ware, *László Moholy-Nagy*, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995), 68. © 1995 The J. Paul Getty Museum.

The authoritative record is held by Getty Museum. LinkedCulture surfaces this object and its connections; it does not alter institutional metadata.