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Berlin Radio Tower

A work made of gelatin silver print.
© 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

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  • A work made of gelatin silver print.

Date:

1928

Artist:

László Moholy-Nagy
American, born Hungary, 1895–1946

About this artwork

Over the winter and spring of 1927–28, Bauhaus professor László Moholy-Nagy took a series of perhaps nine views looking down from the Berlin Radio Tower, one of the most exciting new constructions in the German capital. Moholy had already photographed the Eiffel Tower in Paris from below, looking up through the tower’s soaring girders. In Berlin, however, Moholy turned his camera around and pointed it straight down at the ground. This plunging perspective showed off the spectacular narrowness of the Radio Tower, finished in 1926, which rose vertiginously to a height of 450 feet from a base seven times smaller than that of its Parisian predecessor (which opened in 1889). Moholy attached exceptional importance to this, his boldest image: he hung it just above his name in a room devoted to his work at the Berlin showing of Film und Foto, a mammoth traveling exhibition that he had helped to prepare. Moholy also chose this view and one other to offer Julien Levy, the pioneering art dealer, when Levy visited him in Berlin in 1930. The following year the pictures went on view at the Levy Gallery in New York, in Moholy’s first solo exhibition of photographs.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Photography and Media

Artist

László Moholy-Nagy

Title

Berlin Radio Tower

Place

United States (Artist's nationality:)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

Made 1928

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Inscriptions

Unmarked recto; inscribed verso, in ink: "Photograph by Moholy-Nagy"; stamped verso, upper left, in purple ink: "moholy-nagy / berlin - chbg. 9 / fredericiastr. 27 atelier"; [plus 2 Julien Levy stamps]

Dimensions

Image/paper: 36 × 25.5 cm (14 3/16 × 10 1/16 in.)

Credit Line

Julien Levy Collection, Special Photography Acquisition Fund

Reference Number

1979.84

Copyright

© 2018 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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