?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 4,000 - $ 6,000
LASLO MOHOLY-NAGY (1895-1946) QUICKLY AWAY, THANKS TO PNEUMATIC DOORS. 1936. 40x25 inches. Waterlow & Sons, London. Condition A-: repaired tears in margins. Moholy-Nagy was a driving force within many of the avant-garde movements between the wars, from constructivism to dada to de Stijl. He taught at the Bauhaus from 1923-1928 and was a pioneer in photography, photomontage and new typography. He left Germany before the war and spent two years in London before settling in Chicago. For many years the London Underground had a tremendous tradition of seeking out the best artists to design their posters. Frank Pick, the chief executive of the company, and the great artistic patron of the company's advertising, never missed the chance to utilize some of continental Europe's finest artists, as they migrated through England. Man Ray received a commission the same way, and Moholy-Nagy designed three posters for the Underground. Moholy-Nagy was asked to solve a daunting problem; how to explain pneumatic doors to the public. Using his talent as an industrial designer he devises a technical drawing, which he places within a yellow circle to attract the eye. From the standpoint of information technology it is an excellent attempt to explain a difficult subject matter to the general public, down to the exceptional detail of having his rendering appear like the Underground logo itself! "His version of the London Transport bullseye emblem is a forceful reduction of the symbol that anticipates his interest in transparent forms. The circular lens centered on the pair of doors is a powerful means of focussing attention to a specific element in the design and is a feature of constructivist and avant-garde techniques of graphic design. The lens also implies a technical scrutiny of both macro and microscopic worlds that was implicit in the rhetoric of scientific progress and business efficiency during the 1930s." (http://www.rennart.co.uk/moholy.html).
