MOHOLY-NAGY, László. Zhivopis' Ili Fotografiya / Malerei Fotografie Film [Painting Photography Film]... Moscow: Ogonek-Sovetskoe foto, 1929.

THE RARE RUSSIAN EDITION OF MOHOLY-NAGY'S SEMINAL NEW VISION BOOK MALERIE PHOTOGRAFIE FILM / PAINTING PHOTOGRAPHY FILM

MOHOLY-NAGY, László.
Zhivopis' Ili Fotografiya / Malerei Fotografie Film [Painting Photography Film]...
Moscow: Ogonek-Sovetskoe foto, 1929.

8vo (231 × 176 mm), pp.87, [1]. 33 black-and-white photographs and photo-montages by Moholy-Nagy, Alfred Stieglitz, Albert Renger-Patzsch, Man Ray and others, text translated from the German by S. Nemetskii and A. N. Teleshev, introduction by Aleksey Fedorov-Davydov, ; pages lightly toned. Printed wrappers; lightly soiled, head and foot of spine chipped, chip to upper side at foot of spine and to tip, crease to lower corner of upper side, some underlining and marginal notes in blue ink. Very good.

First Russian edition of Moholy-Nagy's Malerei Photografie Film [Painting Photography Film] (1925), with a different design and containing fewer photographs than the original German edition. 'In this theoretical treatise in text and pictures Moholy-Nagy condemns the subjectivity of pictorialism (using an Alfred Stieglitz picture as a punchbag), and sets out the framework of what he calls the New Vision' (The Photobook). Moholy-Nagy was the central figure in the development of avant-garde photography in Germany during the 1920s. Through his own photography and writing, and the classes he taught at the Bauhaus, he sought to propagate the idea that photography was just as effective a means of communicating visual ideas as painting. Stressing the distinction between photography and fine art, he proposes a new visual literature. 'Traditional painting has become a historical relic and is finished with. Eyes and ears have been opened and are filled at every moment with a wealth of optical and phonetic wonders. A few more vitally progressive years, a few more ardent followers of photographic techniques and it will be a matter of universal knowledge that photography was one of the most important factors in the dawn of a new life.' Rare.

The Russian Avant-Garde Book 1910-1934, MoMA (851); The Photobook: A History vol. I 92-3

Click here to view all items in the 'Prismatic Gyrations and Stratified Emotions' list