In her 1939 history of photography, Lucia Moholy cited Russian films as one source of inspiration for the new portraiture that emerged in the 1920s: "To the general public in Western Europe this style appears strange and exotic. They find it interesting and worth discussing, but few of them wish to have their portraits taken in the same way." In this formidable portrait of Florence Henri, a Paris-based painter who enrolled in Moholy-Nagy's summer course in 1927, Lucia Moholy employed the kind of extreme close-up that had recently thrilled Berlin audiences in Sergei Eisenstein's film Battleship Potemkin (1925).
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Inscription: Stamped, verso LR: "COPYRIGHT BY LUCIA MOHOLY // 39 MECKLENBURGH SQUARE, LONDON, W.6.1, [2nd line crossed out in ink]"; stamped and inscribed in ink, verso LR: "FOTO LUCIA MOHOLY-BERLIN W.5 // Spichernstrasse 20 [2nd line crossed out in blue pencil]"; stamped on paper affixed to print, verso LR: "COPYRIGHT BY LUCIA MOHOLY // 39 MECKLENBURGH SQUARE, LONDON, W.C.1, [2nd line crossed out and partially effaced]"
Artist to Waddell, assisted by Weston Naef, MMA, October 27, 1981, on condition that it be left to MMA; John C. Waddell
The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars. The Ford Motor Company Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 23–December 31, 1989.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. "The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars. The Ford Motor Company Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art," February 28–April 22, 1990.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art. "The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars. The Ford Motor Company Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art," May 10–July 15, 1990.
High Museum of Art. "The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars. The Ford Motor Company Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art," February 5–April 28, 1991.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. "The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars. The Ford Motor Company Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art," June 8–August 4, 1991.
IVAM, Centre Julio Gonzalez, Valencia. "The New Vision, IVAM, Centre Julio Gonzalez, Valencia," January 20, 1995–March 26, 1995.
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. "Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918-1945," June 10, 2007–September 3, 2007.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. "Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918-1945," October 12, 2007–January 13, 2008.
Milwaukee Art Museum. "Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918-1945," February 9, 2008–May 4, 2008.
Hambourg, Maria Morris. The New Vision: Photography between the World Wars, Ford Motor Company Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1989. no. 47.
Witkovsky, Matthew. Foto: Modernity in Central Europe, 1918–1945. London: National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 2007. no. 53.
Lucia Moholy (British (born Austria-Hungary), 1894–1989)
1925–26
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