Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller

László Moholy-Nagy
Portrait of a man, an expressionist drawing by László Moholy-Nagy

1919-1920

About the Item

This recently rediscovered expressionist drawing by László Moholy-Nagy is part of a small group of drawings made by the artist early in his career, in Vienna and Berlin. The use of interlaced curves, typical of the artist's technique, gives this hieratic portrait a magnetic radiance, while the absence of any connection with the rest of the body evokes a profane Holy Face. 1. From Hungary to Chicago, the ardent life of László Moholy-Nagy Moholy-Nagy was born in Borsod, now known as Bácsborsód in Southern Hungary, in July 1895. He studied law in Budapest in 1913, when he was drafted into the Austro-Hungarian army to serve as an artillery officer on the Italian and Russian fronts. While serving at artillery observation posts, Moholy-Nagy was able to execute numerous drawings, recording his traumatic war experience, on the reverse of military-issued postcards which he could easily carry with him. In 1917, he was seriously wounded and hospitalized. The following year (around 1918 at the age of 23), he abandoned his plans to become a lawyer in favour of a career as an artist, with the encouragement of his friend, the art critic Iván Hevesy. The drawings executed in those early years reveal Moholy-Nagy's powerful Expressionist lines. In his autobiography of 1944, Abstract of an Artist, Moholy-Nagy explained his early figurative style, writing that contemporary art in those days was too chaotic and that and all the '-isms' were incomprehensible and puzzling to him. He was, however, experimenting with Dadaist compositions already in 1919 and then moved to Vienna and later to Berlin, where he would soon make his first works in his Constructivist style of the early 1920s. In Berlin he met photograph and writer Lucia Schultz who became his wife the next year. In 1922 he met Walter Gropius. During a vacation on the Rhome with Lucia, she introduced him to making photograms on light-sensitized paper. Walter Gropius invited him to teach at the Bauhaus in Weimar in 1923 where he replaced Paul Klee as Head of the Metal Workshop. The Bauhaus became known for the versatility of its artists and Moholy-Nagy was no exception: throughout his career, he became proficient in the fiels of photography, typography, sculpture, painting, printmaking, film-making and industrial design. In 1928 Moholy-Nagy left the Bauhaus and established his own design studio in Berlin. He separated from his first wide Lucia in 1929. In 1931 he met actress and scriptwriter Sibylle Pietzsch. They married in 1932 and has two daughters, Hattula (born 1933) and Claudia. After the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, he was no longer allowed to work there. He moved his family to London in 1935. In 1937, on the recommendation of Walter Gropius, Moholy-Nagy moved to Chicago to become the director of the New Bauhaus, but the school closed in 1938. Moholy-Nagy resumed doing commercial design work, which he continued for the rest of his life. In 1939 Moholy-Nagy opened the School of Design in Chicago, which became in 1944 the Institute of Design, becoming part of the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1949. Diagnosed with leukemia in 1945, Moholy-Nagy died of the disease in Chicago in 1946. 2. Description of the artwork This drawing presents us with a frontal representation of a man in his thirties, whose penetrating gaze seems to stare at us. The face is highly symmetrical and is modelled by curved black lines. The very high forehead and the slightly dilated left pupil reinforce the very expressive character of the face. Like the Holy Face which appeared on the cloth stretched out to wipe Christ's face by Saint Veronica, only the model's face is represented on the cardboard piece. The curved lines that define the face, hollowing out the temples, the eyelids, the cheeks and the area around the mouth, create a kind of magnetic radiation around a median point located between the eyebrows. In some respects, this face may evoke one of the most famous representations of the Holy Face: the extraordinary engraving by Claude Mellan (1598 - 1688) which has been engraved with a single rotating line starting from the tip of Christ's nose. 3. Related works The technique of this drawing, based on the use of intersecting curves, evokes other portraits made by the artist in the years 1918 -1920, starting with his self-portrait made in 1918 (sold by Sotheby's London for £145,200 on 23 June 2010). Usually drawn with a wax crayon, sometimes with charcoal or graphite, the few portraits we have been able to find in the sale catalogues do not have the hieratic character of the one we are presenting: the sitter is generally represented in a three-quarter view, in mid-bust. The portrait sold at Bonhams on 11 October 2018 is probably the one that seems closest to our work, although it was done with a different medium (charcoal) and also in mid-bust. We were unable to identify the sitter of our portrait. The narrow moustache and the flattened hair are typical of the male canons of the 1920s, as seen, for example, in this photographic portrait of Herbert Bayer (1900 - 1985), which Moholy-Nagy made a few years after our portrait. Our portrait was made on a sheet of strong cardboard about 3 mm thick. We chose not to frame it at this stage, keeping the drawing as a modern icon on cardboard.
  • Creator:
    László Moholy-Nagy (1895 - 1946, Hungarian)
  • Creation Year:
    1919-1920
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 13.13 in (33.36 cm)Width: 8.25 in (20.96 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    Black wax crayon on cardboard 13 1/8” x 8 ¼” (333 x 210 mm) Unframed We wish to thank Mrs Hattula Moholy-Nagy who kindly confirmed the authenticity of this work on the basis of digital photographs.
  • Gallery Location:
    PARIS, FR
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU1568210582502
More From This SellerView All
You May Also Like
  • Untitled 6 - Series Final Fantasy, Minutiae Contemporary Figurative Painting
    By Magdalena Peszkowska
    Located in Salzburg, AT
    Magdalena Peszkowska born in 1980 in Gdańsk, Poland. Studied in Department of Painting at Academy of Fine Arts in Gdańsk (1999-2004). Diploma with special recognition in painting in 2004. The cycle of ‘Final Fantasy...
    Category

    2010s Contemporary Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Acrylic, Cardboard

  • Paysanne Nouant son Foulard (Peasant Arranging her Scarf)
    By Camille Pissarro
    Located in New Orleans, LA
    This intimate work by Camille Pissarro represents a period of significance for the Impressionist master. The early 1880s was a time of great experimentation for the artist, after he spent much of the preceding decade devoted to landscape painting. Shifting focus, he embarked on a series of works in a range of media dedicated to the human figure - particularly peasant women. In watercolor, gouache, pastel, and print, Pissarro captured the rural female and the minute moments of domestic life. Depicting a peasant woman tying her scarf, Paysanne Nouant son Foulard displays the harmony of color and composition that typifies his work of the 1880s. Composed of a symphony of color and strokes of paint, the work exemplifies the plein air technique of Pissarro's best Impressionist canvases. A true master of his art, no other artist successfully chronicled rural peasant life quite like Pissarro. Counted among the most respected artists of the 19th century and widely considered the father of Impressionism, Pissarro’s works experienced a surge in interest in the early 2000s. This is reflected in Pissarro’s new auction record of over $32.1 million, set at a 2014 Sotheby’s auction in London, which far surpassed his previous record of $14.6 million. Born in St. Thomas in the Danish West Indies, Pissarro was sent to school in Paris at the age of 11, where he first displayed a talent for drawing. In 1855, having convinced his parents of his determination to pursue a career as an artist rather than work in the family shipping business, he returned to Paris where he studied at the Académie Suisse alongside Claude Monet. At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870, Pissarro moved to England. With Monet, he painted a series of landscapes around South-East London and studied English landscape painters in the museums. When he returned home to Louveciennes a year later, Camille discovered that all but 40 of the 1500 paintings he had left there - almost 20 years of work - had been vandalized. In 1872, Camille settled in Pontoise where he remained for the next 10 years, gathering a close circle of friends around him. Gauguin was among the many artists to visit him there and Cézanne, who lived nearby, came for long periods to work and learn. In 1874, Pissarro participated in the first Impressionist exhibition...
    Category

    Late 19th Century Impressionist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Pastel, Paper

  • Sit woman pastel drawing
    By Rafael Duran Benet
    Located in Barcelona, Barcelona
    Rafael Duran Benet (1931-2015) - Sit woman - Pastel Drawing measurements 62x42 cm. Frame measurements 82x62 cm. Rafael Duran Benet (Terrassa, 1931 - Barcelona, 2015) is a Catalan painter...
    Category

    1970s Post-Impressionist Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Pastel

  • Rare Modernist Hungarian Rabbi Pastel Drawing Gouache Painting Judaica Art Deco
    By Hugó Scheiber
    Located in Surfside, FL
    Rabbi in the synagogue at prayer wearing tallit and tefillin. Hugó Scheiber (born 29 September 1873 in Budapest – died there 7 March 1950) was a Hungarian modernist painter. Hugo Scheiber was brought from Budapest to Vienna at the age of eight where his father worked as a sign painter for the Prater Theater. At fifteen, he returned with his family to Budapest and began working during the day to help support them and attending painting classes at the School of Design in the evening, where Henrik Papp was one of his teachers. He completed his studies in 1900. His work was at first in a post-Impressionistic style but from 1910 onward showed his increasing interest in German Expressionism and Futurism. This made it of little interest to the conservative Hungarian art establishment. However, in 1915 he met the great Italian avant-gardist Filippo Tommaso Marinetti and the two painters became close friends. Marinetti invited him to join the Futurist Movement. The uniquely modernist style that he developed was, however, closer to German Expressionism than to Futurism and eventually drifted toward an international art deco manner similar to Erté's. In 1919, he and his friend Béla Kádar held an exhibition at the Hevesy Salon in Vienna. It was a great success and at last caused the Budapest Art Museum to acquire some of Scheiber's drawings. Encouraged, Scheiber came back to live in Vienna in 1920. A turning point in Scheiber's career came a year later, when Herwarth Walden, founder of Germany's leading avant-garde periodical, Der Sturm, and of the Sturm Gallery in Berlin, became interested in Scheiber's work. Scheiber moved to Berlin in 1922, and his paintings soon appeared regularly in Walden's magazine and elsewhere. Exhibitions of his work followed in London, Rome, La Paz, and New York. Scheiber's move to Germany coincided with a significant exodus of Hungarian artists to Berlin, including Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Sandor Bortnyik. There had been a major split in ideology among the Hungarian avant-garde. The Constructivist and leader of the Hungarian avantgarde, Lajos Kassák (painted by Hugó Scheiber in 1930) believed that art should relate to all the needs of contemporary humankind. Thus he refused to compromise the purity of his style to reflect the demands of either the ruling class or socialists and communists. The other camp believed that an artist should be a figurehead for social and political change. The fall out and factions that resulted from this politicisation resulted in most of the Hungarian avant gardists leaving Vienna for Berlin. Hungarian émigrés made up one of the largest minority groups in the German capital and the influx of their painters had a significant effect on Hungarian and international art. Another turning point of Scheiber's career came in 1926, with the New York exhibition of the Société Anonyme, organized by Katherine Dreier. Scheiber and other important avant garde artists from more than twenty-three countries were represented. In 1933, Scheiber was invited by Marinetti to participate in the great meeting of the Futurists held in Rome in late April 1933, Mostra Nazionale d’Arte Futurista where he was received with great enthusiasm. Gradually, the Hungarian artists began to return home, particularly with the rise of Nazism in Germany. Kádar went back from Berlin in about 1932 and Scheiber followed in 1934. He was then at the peak of his powers and had a special flair in depicting café and cabaret life in vivid colors, sturdily abstracted forms and spontaneous brush strokes. Scheiber depicted cosmopolitan modern life using stylized shapes and expressive colors. His preferred subjects were cabaret and street scenes, jazz musicians, flappers, and a series of self-portraits (usually with a cigar). his principal media being gouache and oil. He was a member of the prestigious New Society of Artists (KUT—Képzőművészek Új Társasága)and seems to have weathered Hungary's post–World War II transition to state-communism without difficulty. He continued to be well regarded, eventually even receiving the posthumous honor of having one of his images used for a Russian Soviet postage stamp (see image above). Hugó Scheiber died in Budapest in 1950. Paintings by Hugó Scheiber form part of permanent museum collections in Budapest (Hungarian National Museum), Pecs (Jannus Pannonius Museum), Vienna, New York, Bern and elsewhere. His work has also been shown in many important exhibitions, including: "The Nell Walden Collection," Kunsthaus Zürich (1945) "Collection of the Société Anonyme," Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, Connecticut (1950) "Hugó Scheiber: A Commemorative Exhibition," Hungarian National Museum, Budapest (1964) "Ungarische Avantgarde," Galleria del Levante, Munich (1971) "Paris-Berlin 1900-1930," Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1978) "L’Art en Hongrie, 1905-1920," Musée d’Art et l’Industrie, Saint-Etienne (1980) "Ungarische Avantgarde in der Weimarer Republik," Marburg (1986) "Modernizmus," Eresz & Maklary Gallery, Budapest (2006) "Hugó Scheiber & Béla Kádár," Galerie le Minotaure, Paris and Tel Aviv (2007) Hugó Scheiber's paintings continue to be regularly sold at Sotheby's, Christie's, Gillen's Arts (London), Papillon Gallery (Los Angeles) and other auction houses. He was included in the exhibition The Art Of Modern Hungary 1931 and other exhibitions along with Vilmos Novak Aba, Count Julius Batthyany, Pal Bor, Bela Buky, Denes Csanky, Istvan Csok, Bela Czobel, Peter Di Gabor, Bela Ivanyi Grunwald, Baron Ferenc Hatvany, Lipot Herman, Odon Marffy, C. Pal Molnar...
    Category

    Early 20th Century Modern Figurative Paintings

    Materials

    Paper, Charcoal, Pastel, Watercolor, Gouache

  • Les bonshommes 2021 - Pastel contemporary drawing
    By Camille Cottier
    Located in PARIS, FR
    Oeuvres papier de l'artiste française Camille Cottier. Ses “bonhommes”, aux visages honnêtes, sont le reflet de sentiments universels: la solitude, l’amour, l’attente, le rêve
    Category

    21st Century and Contemporary Neo-Expressionist Portrait Drawings and Wa...

    Materials

    Oil Pastel

  • Rococo Portait, French Rococo, Marie Baudouin, Daughter of Francois Boucher
    By François Boucher
    Located in Greven, DE
    Portrait of the daughter of Francois Boucher, Marie-Emilie Baudouin, holding a basket of flowers. Pastel on Parchment. The work is related to an oval portrait painting...
    Category

    18th Century Rococo Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

    Materials

    Pastel

Recently Viewed

View All