Lucia Moholy
Florence Henri

Florence Henri

© Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Florence Henri
Florence Henri
ArtistBritish, born Czechoslovakia, 1900–1989
CultureBritish
Titles
  • Florence Henri
Date1927
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsImage: 15 13/16 × 11 7/8 in. (40.2 × 30.2 cm)
Sheet: 15 13/16 × 11 7/8 in. (40.2 × 30.2 cm)
Mount: 17 3/16 × 13 1/16 in. (43.7 × 33.2 cm)
Credit LineMuseum purchase funded by Max and Isabell Smith Herzstein
Object number85.117
Non exposé

Explore Further

Department
Photography
Object Type
Description

At the time Lucia Moholy photographed her, the American-born, Paris-based painter Florence Henri (1893–1982) had recently arrived at the Bauhaus, the influential art school in Dessau, Germany. There, she enrolled in the “preliminary course” taught by Lucia’s husband, László Moholy-Nagy, and lived in the couple’s home. With Lucia’s and László’s instruction and encouragement, Henri soon turned exclusively to photography, opening a portrait studio in Paris just two years later.


Lucia Moholy’s startlingly close-up portraits were far from the norm. “To the general public in Western Europe this style appears strange and exotic,” she wrote. “They find it interesting and worth discussing, but few of them wish to have their portraits taken in the same way.”


Provenance[Prakapas Gallery, Bronxville, New York]; purchased by MFAH, 1985.
Exhibition History"Evocative Presence: Twentieth Century Photographs in the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston," February 27–May 1, 1988.

"Florence Henri: Artist-Photographer of the Avant- Garde," San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, December 13, 1990–February 10, 1991; Detroit Institute of Arts, March 7–May 5, 1991; Mary & Leigh Block Gallery, Northwestern University, Evanston, Ilinois, May 30–August 4, 1991; University of Iowa Museum of Art, Iowa City, August 31–October 27, 1991; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, December 19, 1991–February 22, 1992.

"The Artist Portrayed," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, August 14–November 5, 1995.

“History of Photography I: Selections from the Museum's Collection,” Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, November 1, 2014–February 22, 2015.


Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks
verso of mount bottom left corner in pencil "58. Moholy iv"
verso of mount bottom right in ink "Lucia Moholy"
verso of mount top left corner a printed label "Florence Henri / phot. Lucia Moholy / 1927"

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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