Kepes, Gyorgy

▪ 2002

      Hungarian-born American artist and theorist (b. Oct. 4, 1906, Selyp, Hung.—d. Dec. 29, 2001, Cambridge, Mass.), experimented with new technologies for art through design, photography, and painting. He headed the Light and Color Department at the New Bauhaus in Chicago (later renamed the Chicago Institute of Design) from 1937 until 1945, when he began teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's School of Architecture and Planning. There he founded (1967) the Center for Advanced Visual Studies, a collective that fostered the marriage between art and science and art and modernity. His books included The Language of Vision (1944) and The New Landscape in Art and Science (1956).

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▪ Hungarian-American artist

born October 4, 1906, Selyp, Hungary

died December 29, 2001, Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.

      Hungarian-born American painter, designer, photographer, teacher, and writer who had considerable influence on many areas of design.

      Shortly after his graduation in 1928 from the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Budapest, Kepes experimented with photograms, photographic prints made by placing objects on sensitized paper and exposing the paper to light. Later, he made prints he called “photo-drawings,” in which he applied paint to a glass plate that he then used as though it were a negative.

 From 1930 to 1936 Kepes worked in Berlin and London, designing for motion pictures, stage productions, and commercial exhibitions. In 1937 he went to the United States to head the light and colour department of the New Bauhaus (later the Institute of Design) in Chicago. He moved to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge in 1946, where he taught visual design until 1974. In 1967 Kepes founded the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT, a community that would unite the work of artists and designers with that of architects, engineers, city planners, and scientists; he served as director until 1972. His writings include Language of Vision (1944) and The New Landscape in Art and Science (1956).

 

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