New Harmony

László Moholy-Nagy (American, born Hungary 1895-1946). A II, 1924, oil on canvas, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, copyright 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. 

This summer the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum shows New Harmony: Abstraction between the Wars, 1919-1939, an exhibition that highlights international abstract artists from the permanent collection. After World War I, many artists increasingly preferred abstraction rather than figuration and pictorial order. 

Centers of creative exchange emerged in European cities during the 1920s and '30s as borders were reopened or redrawn. In response to political and social change, artists sought an aesthetic language that would foster harmony and equilibrium in art and society. Often, this language was formed from principles of geometry--geometric abstraction. It was also expressed through the Bauhaus modern design vocabulary and the abstract forms of Surrealism. Associated developments of abstraction occurred in painting, sculpture, photography, theater, film, literature, design, and architecture. 

Affiliated with the German Bauhaus design school, László Moholy-Nagy (above image) believed art had transformative abilities that could be utilized for collective social reform. His abstract paintings of the 1920s concern pure color--parallelograms and circles describe how hues shift in overlapping planes within a layered space. Through shadow and illumination on the canvas, he viewed light as an essential plastic medium "...just as color in painting and tone in music," says Moholy-Nagy. "This kind of picture is most probably the passage between easel painting and light display." 

Man Ray (American 1890-1976).  Four or Five Times (Quatre ou cinq fois), 1929, oil on canvas, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, copyright Man Ray Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. 

Man Ray was one of the visual artists aligned with Surrealism, an international movement originating in Parisian literary circles in the late 1910s and early '20s. Surrealists were influenced by Freudian dream studies and methods of free association to access the unconscious and produce unexpected imagery. 

Fernand Léger (French 1881-1955). Composition with Aloes, No. 4 (Composition à l'aloës, no.4), 1934-5, oil on canvas, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, copyright 2013 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. 

Tubular and machinelike figures and objects characterize Fernand Léger's work, along with organic and irregular forms. Léger acknowledged the accelerated pace of contemporary life and sought to create dynamic abstract paintings which paralleled the social environment. Several of his paintings were produced in collaborative projects for residential interiors, intended to animate spaces--he asserted painting and sculpture as key architectural components. He was informally associated with Surrealism during the early 1930s, producing paintings with flat planes, angled shapes and objects rendered with bold contours. 

Joan Miró (Spanish 1893-1983). Personage (Personnage), 1925, oil and egg tempera on canvas, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, copyright Successió Miró/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris.  

During the 1920s, Joan Miró explored the Surrealist technique of automatism (spontaneous writing and drawing) in his "dream paintings" to tap the unconscious as a creative force in his art and to minimize deliberation. His calligraphic drawing style resulted in schematic images and a unique language of signs symbolizing people, nature and landscapes. 

Interwar abstract artists in Europe proved a significant influence in the later development of abstract art, particularly in the United States where it contributed to and shaped the direction of the New York group of Abstract Expressionists which emerged in the early 1940s.

On view through September 8 at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 1071 Fifth Avenue, New York.