Lucia Moholy

Lucia Moholy, born Lucia Schulz, (18 January 1894, Prague, Austria-Hungary — 17 May 1989, Zurich, Switzerland) was a photographer and wife of artist and fellow photographer László Moholy-Nagy.

Biography

After studying philosophy, philology, and art history, she worked as an editor and lecturer in Prague. She met and married László Moholy-Nagy in 1920 in Berlin. She studied photography in Weimar and Leipzig from 1923 to 1924 and, when her husband secured a position at the Bauhaus, lived in Dessau and produced many of the iconic images and portraits associated with that school. In 1928, she and her husband moved to Berlin where she worked at the Ittenschule as a stage photographer and lecturer.

The couple separated in 1932 and emigrated, separately, to London when the National Socialist German Workers Party rose to power in 1933. There, she continued to photograph and teach, publishing a book, A Hundred Years of Photography, 1839-1939 (Harmondsworth, 1939) and directing a microfilm/reprography service based at the Science Museum Library, London, for the Association of Special Libraries and Information Bureaux (Aslib) (see Moholy, L. (1946), "The ASLIB microfilm service: the story of its wartime activities", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 2 No.3, pp.147-73). Immediately after the war she travelled to the Near and Middle East for projects for UNESCO. She retired in 1959 to Zollikon, Switzerland.

After studying philosophy, philology, and art history in Prague, she worked as an editor and writer in Germany. She met the Hungarian artist László Moholy-Nagy 1920 in Berlin and married him on her 27th birthday in January 1921. When he became a master at the Staatliches Bauhaus in Weimar she accompanied him and studied photography in Leipzig. Together with the Bauhaus they both moved to the city of Dessau where she produced many of the iconic images and portraits associated with the school. In 1928 they left the Bauhaus and she and her husband moved to Berlin where she taught photography at a school run by former Bauhaus master Johannes Itten.

Though separated both immigrated to London when the National Socialist came to power in 1933. There, she continued to photograph and teach, publishing a book, A Hundred Years of Photography, 1839-1939 (Harmondsworth, 1939) and directing a microfilm/reprography service based at the Science Museum Library, London, for the Association of Special Libraries and Information Bureaux (Aslib) (see Moholy, L. (1946), "The ASLIB microfilm service: the story of its wartime activities", Journal of Documentation, Vol. 2 No.3, pp.147-73). Immediately after the war she travelled to the Near and Middle East for projects for UNESCO. She retired in 1959 to Zollikon, Switzerland.

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