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Artist or Maker: Laszlo Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946)
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Provenance: Acquired from the artist in 1936, and thence by descent to the present owner.
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Notes: 'My belief is that mathematically harmonious shapes, executed precisely, are filled with emotional quality, and that they represent the perfect balance between feeling and intellect' (Moholy-Nagy, 'Abstract of an artist', in R. Motherwell (ed.), Lazslo Moholy-Nagy, Documents of Modern Art, New York, 1947).
Executed in 1936 while Moholy-Nagy was living in London, SRhO 1 is a rare and outstanding example of only a few remaining paintings on plastic that the artist made in the 1930s. Inspired by the effect he had observed and filmed in the Light-Space Modulator that he had invented and built during his years as a professor at the Bauhaus, in his paintings of the 1930s Moholy spent much time translating these effects into colour and material form.
It had always been Moholy's practice to adapt his work to, and to adopt the latest industrial technologies. It was part of his life's work to try to integrate the role of the artist, engineer and industrial pioneer. It was primarily for this reason that his paintings were given letters and numbers for their titles, in order, as he once put it, to make them seem more like 'cars, airplanes, or other industrial products' that had rolled off a production line (ibid.).
The present work in oil on plastic, something that Moholy had first started to do in the 1920s, reflects a practice that forced him to re-introduce the texture of brushwork into his art. In the aftermath of the stunning developments wrought by the Light-Space Modulator, in the 1930s Moholy also began to introduce light effects, scratching, incising and even cutting holes into the surface of his plastic paintings in addition to painting texturally onto their smooth surface. SRhO 1 incorporates many of these elements within its deceptively simple composition.
Using solely the prime colours, red, yellow, blue, back and white, and simple geometric forms, the painting articulates a sense of the mystery that can infuse even the simplest of shapes when it is subjected to light and movement. Using an amoebus strip-like geometric switch to create a form suggestive of three dimensions but, in actuality, one impossible to realise, the oblongs of plain colour seem to describe perforations and shadows, implied motion and the presence of light. This sense of light is reinforced by dynamic streaks of engraved lines into the curved black surface of the plastic that again reinforces a deep sense of mystery and ambiguity in a work of such apparent simplicity. It was in this way, by weaving a sense of the enigmatic but unlimited possibility of simple form and colour, that Moholy hoped to imbue his work with a profound sense of emotion and to establish a 'perfect balance between feeling and intellect'.
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