Stage set design for Madame Butterfly

Lucia Moholy began experimenting with photography with her husband, artist László Moholy-Nagy, in the early 1920s. When Moholy-Nagy was appointed in 1923 to the Bauhaus Weimar—a progressive school combining the fine and applied arts with modern technology and a combined emphasis on theoretical and vocational training—Lucia Moholy started working there as a freelance photographer, documenting staff and teachers, objects produced in the workshops, and the school’s Walter Gropius-designed buildings. In 1929, Moholy-Nagy was appointed the set designer at the Kroll Opera House, and produced several avant-garde sets employing translucent and perforated materials that would allow light to act as a sculptural element in the production. For Madame Butterfly, he constructed a Japanese house with sliding walls that could be transformed by light and movement. Lucia Moholy’s photograph of the scene emphasizes the diffusion of forms and blurring of space effected through his unconventional designs.