Getty Museum

Verantworte!

Date

about 1930

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

> In 1928 László Moholy-Nagy left his teaching position at the Bauhaus in Dessau upon the resignation of director Walter Gropius. Returning to Berlin, where he had first lived on arriving in Germany, he supported himself by working as a freelance designer. This piece is probably a design for a book jacket. The use of the script typeface is seen in other examples of his work from this time and represents a departure from the stark, lower-case type he favored at the Bauhaus. Pictures of part of a woman’s face are intercut with a variety of crowd scenes, punctuated with the command, “Be Responsible!” This piece is clearly a call to action, although the cause is not yet identified. The beginning of the 1930s in Germany was marked by political turmoil and an increasing polarization in cultural and political life. Economic pressures and the threat of censorship presented increasing difficulties for artists. The crowd scenes suggest protest demonstrations; the woman’s mouth may represent the importance of speaking out, although it appears oddly glamorous. > > Katherine Ware, *László Moholy-Nagy*, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995), 78. © 1995 The J. Paul Getty Museum.

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