Documenting László Moholy-Nagy's Innovative Materials
Understanding the specific pigments and plastics that the Bauhaus artist innovated with is crucial for conservation practices
In preparation for an exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum, Center researchers conducted an extensive scientific examination of the painting materials used by the innovative Bauhaus artist László Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946). The artist employed modern materials such as metals and plastics, alongside more traditional artists’ oil paint and canvas, creatively manipulating these diverse media to generate a unique visual vocabulary for his explorations of light and kinetics through new plastics, paintings, and photography.
Center researchers studied works primarily from the Guggenheim collection, using noninvasive techniques and microscopic investigation. The material analysis provides the foundation for a material lexicon on of the artist’s painting supports, pigments, and media—a more challenging compilation than initially expected because of the wide range of proprietary brand names for the industrial plastics, paints, and other mid-20th-century materials. As former Center post-doctoral fellow Johanna Salvant described in an account of this research, this project indicates the value of combining scientific analysis with archival study that can enhance understanding of historical patents, advertisements, ledgers, and other trade knowledge about the use of these new materials.
Moholy-Nagy used primarily artists’ tube paints, although he experimented with enamel and metallic paints in his explorations of the optical effects of different surfaces. He used semitransparent planes of color to suggest transparency or projected light: yet these overlaps were a carefully delineated illusion of colors mapped to precisely outlined spaces to create the overlapping lightbeam effects. He wrote: “Painting transparencies was the start… I painted as if colored light was projected on a screen, and other colored lights superimposed over it.”
His use of metals and plastics for painting supports also let him experiment with color and transparency. Fascinated by the fusing of art and science in design, Moholy-Nagy joined other Bauhaus artists in creatively appropriating industrial materials for his projects, including new plastics that were hitting the industrial market. Plexiglas (an acrylic polymer) let him play with incising and filling shapes with pigment to play with the transparency. Other plastic supports have in the past been broadly identified as resins, but was identified in this study as Trolit, a cellulose nitrate plastic that is less stable over time. “I began to paint on aluminum, highly polished nonferrous alloys, and on thermosetting and thermoplastics," the artist wrote in describing his experiments in new materials, noting, "If I had not been afraid that these latter materials were no permanent, I would never have painted on canvas again.”
Indeed, this research allows conservators to understand better how to care for these plastics, for identifying a material like Trolit (and distinguishing it from other materials) can give conservators a better sense of how to care for the materials going forward.
Publications:
Salvant, J., J. Barten, F. Casadio, M. Kokkori, F. Pozzi, C. Stringari, K. Sutherland, and M. Walton. 2017. "László Moholy-Nagy’s Painting Materials: From Substance to Light." Leonardo 50 (3): 316-320.
Barten, J., F. Casadio, J. Salvant, C. Stringari, K. Sutherland, and M. Walton. 2016. "A Wealth of Optical Expression: László Moholy-Nagy’s Works in the Collection of the Guggenheim Museum." Postprints of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic & Artistic Works 43rd Annual Meeting, Miami, USA, May 13-16, 2015.
Salvant, J., M. Walton, J. Barten, C. Stringari, F. Casadio, and K. Sutherland. 2016. "Two László Moholy-Nagy Paintings on Trolit: Insights into the Condition of an Early Cellulose Nitrate plastic." E-preservation Science 13:15-22.