László Moholy-Nagy. Painting, Photography, Film (Malerei, Fotografie, Film). Munich: Albert Langen Verlag, 1925. The Museum of Modern Art Library, New York. Left: Hannah Höch. The Multi-Millionaire (Der Milliardär). 1923. Right: Paul Citroen. Metropolis (City of My Birth) (Weltstadt [Meine Geburtsstadt]). 1923. © 2006 Hannah Höch/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. © Paul Citroën/Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York/Pictoright, Amsterdam

Production-Reproduction: The Circulation of Photographic Modernism, 1900–1950

This exhibition is motivated by links between photography and printed matter, seen through the lens of the Museum’s Thomas Walther Collection, which is comprised of 341 photographs created between 1909 and 1949 by almost 150 photographers from North America and Europe. On view here are examples of defining texts, monographic photo books, and illustrated magazines that reproduce either photographs from the Walther Collection or similar photographs by the same artists.

Production-Reproduction complements the efforts of a four-year study of the Thomas Walther Collection, which culminates in the book Object:Photo. Modern Photographs: The Thomas Walther Collection, 1909–1949 and a digital humanities website at MoMA.org/objectphoto. The collection is on view in the exhibition Modern Photographs from the Thomas Walther Collection, 1909–1949 on the third floor in the Edward Steichen Photography Galleries.

The exhibition is organized by Ksenia Nouril, Research and Editorial Assistant, Department of Photography, and Jennifer Tobias, Reader Services Librarian, MoMA Library.

Production-Reproduction

This exhibition is organized around the reproduction of modernist photographs in three types of printed matter from the first decades of the twentieth century: defining texts, such as Malerei, Fotografie, Film (1925) by László Moholy-Nagy, influential monographic photo books, such as Germaine Krull’s Métal (1928), and illustrated magazines, such as Bauhaus (1926–1931). These diverse publications reproduce many important photographs from this period, including those in the Museum’s Thomas Walther Collection. Considering these photographs in historical publications serves as a reminder of how photography was, and continues to be, circulated and consumed.

László Moholy-Nagy. Malerei, Fotografie, Film (Painting, photography, film). Bauhausbücher 8. Munich: Albert Langen Verlag, 1925, 1927

Bauhaus 2, no. 1 and no. 4 (1928)

Eye to Hand to Print

This case contains historical publications that survey photography in the 1920s and 1930s. Today, these books, mainly exhibition catalogues, continue to shape the definition of photographic modernism as practiced by László Moholy-Nagy and his contemporaries, among them Aenne Biermann, Max Burchartz, Dziga Vertov, Berenice Abbott, Herbert Bayer, and Umbo.

Three books—Foto-Auge, Es Kommt der Neue Fotograf!, and Filmgegner von Heute—were published in conjunction with the landmark exhibition Film und Foto (FiFo), first mounted in 1929 in Stuttgart. From its film festival organized by Hans Richter to its total installations by artists like El Lissitzky, FiFo embodied New Vision ideals of photography and film as integrated tools for modern expression.

Less than ten years later, in 1937, Beaumont Newhall organized Photography 1839–1937, The Museum of Modern Art’s first exhibition dedicated to the techniques, history, and practice of the medium. In 1940, Newhall would go on to establish the Department of Photography at MoMA.

Franz Roh and Jan Tschichold, eds. Foto-Auge. 76 Fotos der Zeit/Oeil et photo. 76 Photographies de notre temps/Photo-Eye: 76 Photoes [sic] of the Period. Stuttgart: Akademischer Verlag F. Wedekind, 1929

László Moholy-Nagy. Malerei, Fotografie, Film (Painting, photography, film). Bauhausbücher 8. Munich: Albert Langen Verlag, 1925

Gustaf Stotz, et al. Internationale Ausstellung des Deutschen Werkbunds Film und Foto (International exhibition of the Deutscher Werkbund film and photo). Stuttgart: Deutscher Werkbund, 1929

Werner Gräff. Es Kommt der Neue Fotograf! (Here comes the new photographer!). Berlin: H. Reckendorf, 1929

Hans Richter and Werner Gräff. Filmgegner von Heute—Filmfreunde von Morgen (Film haters today, film lovers tomorrow). Berlin: Hermann Reckendorf, 1929

László Moholy-Nagy. The New Vision: From Material to Architecture. New York: Brewer, Warren & Putnam, 1930

Beaumont Newhall. Photography, 1839–1937. New York: The Museum of Modern Art, 1937

From Photo Eye to Photo Book

These books showcase a diverse range of individual photographic practices, from the prototypical documentary street scenes of Eugène Atget to Francis Bruguière’s commercial illustrations. Karl Blossfeldt’s 1928 Urformen der Kunst, presented here in a later edition, was originally developed as a teaching tool for artists. Featuring enlarged and very detailed photographs of plant structures, it combines aesthetics with empiricism, advancing principles of documentary photography and taxonomy. Albert Renger-Patzsch and August Sander also applied these ideas in their contemporary portrait books.

Even though all of these publications feature the work of a single artist, some are organized around a narrative, while others reproduce the photographs as single plates or in curated pairs with minimal descriptive text.

Eugène Atget. Atget, photographe de Paris (Atget, photographer of Paris). New York City: E. Weyhe, 1930

Karl Blossfeldt. Wundergarten der natur: 120 Bildtafeln (Art forms in nature: 120 full-page illustrations). Berlin: Verlag für Kinstwissenschaft, 1932

August Sander and Alfred Döblin. Antlitz der Zeit (The face of our time). Munich: Transmare Verlag AG, 1929

Aenne Biermann: 60 Fotos (Aenne Biermann: 60 photos). Edited and with an introduction by Franz Roh. Berlin: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1930

Jindrich Heisler and Jindrich Štyrský. Na jehlách techto dní (On the needles of these days). Prague: Fr. Borový, 1945

Berenice Abbott and Elizabeth McCausland. Changing New York: A Book of Photographs. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1939

Weegee. Naked City. New York: Essential Books, 1946

Illustrated Press

Flooded with images and texts, especially in the form of advertisements, the illustrated press before and after the two world wars both inspired and documented a period of intense photographic production. Newspapers, magazines, journals, and almanacs from around the world, including the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Germany, and France, represent this era of mass communication. Affordable and widely available, periodicals facilitated the circulation of images and ideas, allowing artists to expand their networks both at home and abroad.

Lef (Left) no. 3 (June–July 1923)

ReD 3, no. 1 (1929)

László Moholy-Nagy. De Stijl 5, no. 7 (July 1922)

Photographie. Paris: Arts et Métiers Graphiques, 1931

Das Deutsche Lichtbild: Jahresschau 1933 (German photography annual 1933). Berlin: Robert & Bruno Schultz, 1933

SSSR na stroike (USSR in construction) no. 5 (1931)

The Thomas Walther Collection Project is made possible by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Major support is provided by The Museum of Modern Art’s Research and Scholarly Publications endowment established through the generosity of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Edward John Noble Foundation, Mr. and Mrs. Perry R. Bass, and the National Endowment for the Humanities’ Challenge Grant Program; with additional funding from The John Szarkowski Publications Fund.