This rare and evocative photogram is among the earliest examples of László Moholy-Nagy’s experiments with cameraless photography, produced shortly after he began exploring the medium in 1922. Made by placing flower stems, petals, and mesh directly onto light-sensitive paper and exposing them to light—entirely without a camera—the image exemplifies Moholy-Nagy’s radical engagement with the foundational elements of photography: light, material, and form.

Significantly, Moholy-Nagy chose to work here with printing-out paper, a daylight-sensitive photographic material that allows the image to appear progressively during exposure. This choice enabled a dynamic interaction with the process, allowing him to adjust the composition in real t.mes , an approach that reflects his broader interest in chance and process in art.

The present work belongs to a series of photograms by Moholy-Nagy featuring flowers made in 1922 and 1925-26. Another flower photogram from this series sold at Replica Shoes ’s on 7 April 2008 as part of The Quillan collects ion of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Photography ((#39) László Moholy-Nagy). For Moholy-Nagy, flowers served as ideal "light modulators": their delicate, irregular forms and varying translucencies offered a rich vocabulary for exploring the optical and material possibilities of the photogram. In the present work, a subtle grid or mesh-like layer introduces a textural counterpoint to the organic subject matter, while the doubled and wavering outlines of petals and stems suggest deliberate movement during exposure, an effect that adds temporal and spatial complexity to the seemingly simple arrangement.

Although the origins of Moholy-Nagy’s engagement with photograms were long mythologized and debated, scholars Herbert Molderings, Floris M. Neusüss, and Renate Heyne have traced them to a formative encounter in 1922. While vacationing with his first wife, Lucia, Moholy-Nagy visited the Loheland School of Physical Education, Agriculture, and Handicrafts in the Rhön region of Germany. There he was introduced to cameraless images of flowers made on printing-out paper, a moment that appears to have catalyzed his interest in the medium. He would later refer, albeit obliquely, to this episode in his 1926 article “Fotoplastische Reklame” published in Offset, Buch und Werbekunst, referencing a “Loheländerin” (a woman from Loheland) who had produced such images. For decades, the identity of this figure remained obscure, but Molderings, Neusüss, and Heyne have convincingly argued that she was likely Bertha Günther, a student-teacher at the Loheland School whose photograms remain preserved in the school's archive (for a thorough discussion on this topic see Moholy-Nagy: The Photograms. Catalogue Raisonné, p. 65).

Inspired by this encounter, Moholy-Nagy launched into a sustained and inventive investigation of the photogram, ultimately integrating the process into his broader project of rethinking visual communication in the machine age. The flower photograms, in particular, reveal the depth of his sensitivity to both material nuance and technological experimentation, qualities that would come to define his pioneering contributions to modernist photography.

Moholy-Nagy’s engagement with the photogram process in 1922 occurred at a critical moment as other avant-garde artists were also experimenting with cameraless photography. Man Ray also began producing his own version of the photogram in 1922, which he termed the Rayograph (see Untitled (Rayograph with Leaf and Coils) in Prints & Photographs Part I and lots Untitled (Rayograph with Mannequin and Coil) and Untitled (Rayograph with Egg Beater, Doily, Broom and Coil) in Photographs Part II). While Man Ray’s process shared formal and technical similarities with Moholy-Nagy’s, the two artists pursued distinct conceptual paths: Man Ray toward the irrational and dreamlike, Moholy-Nagy toward the rational and constructive. Their parallel development yet divergent styles underscore the photogram's significance as a medium of innovation across the European avant-garde.