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A work made of gelatin silver print.

Mrs. István Sebők, Berlin

1930

Gyula Pap Hungarian, 1899–1983

Hungary

Best known as a sculptor and painter, Gyula Pap first trained at the Graphic Arts School in Vienna (where he learned the basics of photography) and later enrolled in the newly founded Bauhaus to study under the mystic painter and theorist Johannes Itten. Pap began to pursue photography seriously in the mid-1920s, and in 1928, two years after his mentor founded the Itten School, he joined the faculty there to teach graphic arts. This photograph, which Pap made during his tenure at the Itten School, exemplifies the kind of informal, diaristic approach that many Bauhaus students explored in the late 1920s. Its "worm's-eye" perspective reflects the belief that unusual angles could shake conventional habits of seeing the world, a practice that László Moholy-Nagy called the "New Vision."

Gelatin silver print

Photography and Media