LASZLO MOHOLY-NAGY (1895-1946) IMPERIAL AIRWAYS / MAP OF EMPIRE & EUROPEAN AIR ROUTES. 1936.
25x39 1/2 inches, 63 1/2x100 1/4 cm. Curwen Press, London.
Condition B+: expertly-restored loss in image, affecting text; restoration along vertical and horizontal folds; repaired tear through left margin into image.
Moholy-Nagy left Germany in 1935 and spent two years in London before settling in Chicago. In London, he found employment doing artwork for a men's clothing store and producing publicity material for Imperial Airways. He is credited with designing both a brochure and this poster map for the airline in 1936, each of which was unsigned. This world map is Moholy-Nagy's tribute to Henry Beck's recently designed and published London Tube Map (1933). "The Tube Map imports the aesthetics of Eastern and Middle European avant-gardes, including Constructivism and the Bauhaus . . . In this context, Moholy-Nagy designed a world network map for the Imperial Airways airline that transferred Beck's topological aesthetics to the connections of world air traffic while juxtaposing a diagram and a map view" (Amodern.net). Rare. Albers & Moholy-Nagy 58.