Composition

László Moholy-Nagy

(ca. 1923)

A compact linoleum cut in which Moholy‑Nagy reduces mechanical forms to intersecting bars, lines, and a stippled disk to explore movement, light, and spatial tension.

You'd first notice a small, off‑center black rectangle pierced by crisp white slashes and thin linear marks with a dotted circle at its core, producing an economy of shapes that feels like an engineered collision in space against the spare paper.

Dating from the early 1920s, this print channels Bauhaus and Constructivist concerns—using industrial geometry and reductive print techniques to help forge a new modern visual language that shaped graphic design and experimental printmaking.

Palette

Art Terms

Bauhaus Constructivism Linoleum cut Print Geometric abstraction Graphic design

Exhibitions

Kertész, Rodchenko, and Moholy-Nagy: Photographs from the Collection

1974

Preliminary Course of the Bauhaus

1941

The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age

1968

How to make a Photogram

1942