Untitled Photogram, 1939

László Moholy-Nagy's lifetime fascination with light led him to experiment with painting, sculpture, cinema and photography. He believed that the manipulation of light through any means could lead to new ways of seeing that would liberate us from traditional pictorial conventions. Turning to experiment with photograms beginning in 1922 he dispensed not only with brushwork in painting but also with the use of a lens in photography.

A photogram is made by placing objects directly on a sheet of photographic paper. Where the paper is uncovered, it receives maximum exposure to light and the tone is darkest and where the paper receives no exposure to light, the tone is lightest. Moholy used this photogram process as an opportunity to fix light and shadow directly onto the photographic paper without a camera, creating a 'vision in motion' and the 'absolute filmic art'. He often experimented with making subsequent prints using the original photograms as negatives, and with producing enlargements for exhibition purposes.

According to the congenial inscription on the verso of this photogram, this work was gifted by Moholy to Charles W. Niedringhaus, an artist who himself experimented with the photogram technique.