Getty Museum

Fotogramm (Photogram)

Date

1927

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Culture

American

Department

Photographs

Institution

Getty Museum

> A photogram is a shadowy image made without a camera by placing one or more items between light-sensitive paper and a light source. Lucia Moholy and László Moholy-Nagy often took the process a step further by photographing the completed photogram to create a negative or by using the photogram itself as a negative, as in the case of this print. The soft edges of the shapes result from the grain of the paper through which light passed to create the image. This enlargement was made at the Bauhaus in Dessau, where the couple had regular access to darkroom facilities for the first time. The composition has a strong Suprematist spirit reminiscent of the Russian artist and theorist Kazimir Malevich. This picture attests to Moholy-Nagy’s belief that something quite beautiful could be created from very simple elements, in this case a rectangle, an oval, and a coil. The flat graphic quality of this piece contrasts with the majority of Moholy’s photograms, in which he attempted to convey light and depth. > Katherine Ware, *László Moholy-Nagy*, In Focus: Photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum (Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1995), 64. © 1995 The J. Paul Getty Museum.

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