Lot Essay
This composition was published in a further issue of the Bauhaus, the Meistermappe des Staatlichen Bauhauses in 1923, and comes from the same period as the portfolio of six Konstruktionen by Moholy-Nagy issued as Kestnermappe 6 by the Kestnergesellschaft in Hamburg.
These prints rank amongst the most important constructivist works in printmaking.
In 1922 Moholy-Nagy had articulated his own view of this form of abstraction in a series of articles published by MA (Today):
"Constructivism is neither proletarian nor capitalistic. Constructivism is primordial, without class or ancestor. It expresses the pure form of nature - the direct colour, the spatial rhythm, the equilibrium of form. The new world of the masses needs Constructivism because it needs fundamentals that are without deceit... Constructivism is the socialism of vision"
(Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Moholy-Nagy: Experiment in Totality, New York, 1969, pp. 19-20; quoted in Frances Carey and Antony Griffiths The Print in Germany 1880-1933, London 1984, p. 222)
These prints rank amongst the most important constructivist works in printmaking.
In 1922 Moholy-Nagy had articulated his own view of this form of abstraction in a series of articles published by MA (Today):
"Constructivism is neither proletarian nor capitalistic. Constructivism is primordial, without class or ancestor. It expresses the pure form of nature - the direct colour, the spatial rhythm, the equilibrium of form. The new world of the masses needs Constructivism because it needs fundamentals that are without deceit... Constructivism is the socialism of vision"
(Sibyl Moholy-Nagy, Moholy-Nagy: Experiment in Totality, New York, 1969, pp. 19-20; quoted in Frances Carey and Antony Griffiths The Print in Germany 1880-1933, London 1984, p. 222)