1895-1946 Hungarian 20th Century Painter, photographer, sculptor, teacher.
He began his artistic life associating with Constructivism. He made friends with El Lissitzky and Vladimir Tatlin.
In 1921 he arrived in Berlin.
Beginning in 1923, he taught at the Bauhaus School, Germany. There he met Walter Gropius, Joseph Albers and Wassily Kandinsky. Among other projects, he produced abstract photograms, mobile sculptures, such as Light-Space Requisite (1922--30). He also designed a series of books which were models of layout in their time.
The structure of his book and page layout was based on rectilinear design. That is, the overwhelming forms were the rectangle and the perfect circle. He not only designed books this way, but posters, photographs and paintings.
In 1937, he emigrated to America, and from 1937 until his death, was the director of the 'Bauhaus School of Design in Chicago' aka New Bauhaus and (later called the Chicago Institute of Design) in 1939. The author of Vision in Motion 1947, he influenced many commercial and design artists. For a time he was part of the avant-garde at Black Mountain College in North Carolina.
Sources:
Kostelanetz, Richard, "Dictionary of the Avant-Gardes", Schirmer Books, New York, 2000
Whitford, Frank, "Bauhaus", Thames and Hudson, London, 1984
Last Updated 04.04.04