Komposition mit farbigen Streifen

Hattula Moholy-Nagy has confirmed the authenticity of this work.

Having created his last representational expressionist drawing in 1921, Moholy-Nagy resolved to cast his art in the language of abstraction, 'completely freed from all elements reminiscent of nature,' he later wrote. 'My desire was to work with nothing but the peculiar characteristics of colors, with their pure relationships. I chose simple geometric forms as a step toward such objectivity.' His intent was not, however, a formal art for art’s sake. 'The so-called "unpolitical" approach to art is a fallacy,' Moholy-Nagy averred. 'Art may press for a socio-biological solution to problems just as energetically as social revolutionaries may press for political action' (L. Moholy-Nagy, The New Vision and Abstract of an Artist, New York, 1947, p. 76).

The present work was created during Moholy-Nagy's tenure at the Weimar and Dessau Bauhaus between 1923 and 1928, when he produced many of his finest paintings and most remarkable works in other fields, while laying the groundwork for future innovations in his art. The worsening political situation in Europe during the 1930s forced the Hungarian-born artist into even more distant exile from his native land, although these circumstances provided the timely opportunity of allowing him to bring his art and ideas directly to America, where he became widely appreciated as a teacher.