The story of how Lucia Moholy Schultz* recovered her heritagem and the duty of the historian
The Bauhaus: an iconic and popularized institution
« To remember is, more and more, not to recall a story but to be able to call up a picture.’ »
The Bauhaus was a historically significant institution of art and design, central to the avant-garde movements of the twentieth century. Unlike other schools, such as Vkhutemas, it succeeded in establishing a lasting legacy and enduring memory. The Bauhaus became widely recognized among architects, designers, and art enthusiasts. In the United States and abroad, the Bauhaus became a household name. One could argue that the reason for this success is largely due to Walter Gropius. After immigrating to the United States, the founder and first director of the Bauhaus, invested in promoting his institution to the general public. Although the first Bauhaus exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in 1938 “Bauhaus 1919-1928”, was not an immediate success. However, its accompanying catalog was a milestone that shaped the image and perception of the Bauhaus internationally. The MoMA catalog placed considerable emphasis on Gropius, positioning him as the central figure of the Bauhaus. After his death, however, this view was critically re-examined, revealing self-serving behavior, including appropriating the contributions of his collaborators and family members, and even jeopardizing the well-being of his loved ones to promote his image.
The abrupt closure of the Bauhaus by the Nazis and the subsequent exile of numerous faculty members resulted in the dispersion of objects created by the teachers and students. Consequently, the documentary photographs assume a heightened significance as a primary source of information for promoting the Bauhaus. Lucia Schultz Moholy, who served as the unofficial documentary photographer of the Gropius Bauhaus, captured over 560 photographs between 1923 and 1929. One might posit that she has shaped the visual memory of the Bauhaus that we have today. The MoMA catalog includes 49 images taken by Schultz, yet she was not credited by her friend and former director Walter Gropius. Furthermore, seventeen years after her forced exile, she discovered that Gropius had stolen her negatives and was using them to promote the institution he founded.
The unofficial photographer
The Moholy couple arrived in the Bauhaus in 1923, Lázlo as a master and Lucia as the 'wife's master'. At the time of her arrival, Schultz had been working in the editorial world and had the technical skills of developing pictures in the camera obscura. Her talents were not left unseen by Gropius, who hired her to document the architecture and the material production of the institute.
However, there is no documentation indicating that she was working as a photographer for the Bauhaus during Gropius' time, it seems that she might have accepted the job orally, leading to being left unquoted most of the time in the Bauhaus publications, which she later regretted. Her work at Bauhaus was unpaid, but she kept the negative and charged a small image-usage fee.
« I took those photographs on my own account and my own responsibility, and have been entitled, in all cases, to claim fees for publication and other uses »
Lucia Schultz's photographs were not purely documentary; they expressed the ideas and goals of the modernist minds of the Bauhaus. Although it was financially impossible for most of the masters to produce their work in series, Schultz's photographs give us an understanding of the ultimate goal.
The exile: stolen images and destroyed heritage
The Moholy couple left the Bauhaus in 1928, the same year Gropius stepped down from his role as director. By the time they left the Bauhaus, their relationship had become significantly strained, ultimately leading to a divorce in 1929. Following their separation, Schultz began a romantic relationship with Theodor Neubauer, a communist party parliament member and activist. On August 3, 1933, Theodor was arrested in Shultz's residence, and Lucia, a secular jew, was forced to leave Berlin immediately. She was unable to re-access her apartment and take her belongings with her. She initially sought refuge in Prague, subsequently relocating to Vienna and then via Paris to London, where she arrived in June 1934. In England, without fiscal proof of her work, Schultz faced significant challenges in establishing her reputation anew. Before leaving Berlin, she had entrusted her negatives to her ex-husband, not realizing until 1950 that Moholy had passed them on to Walter Gropius. This only came to light when Moholy’s new wife, Sibylle Pietzsch (Sibyl Moholy-Nagy), wrote to Schultz, explaining that they had given her negatives to Gropius' concierge and that her apartment had later been bombed.
In a letter to Gropius of January 1954, Schultz asked him if he had any idea of where she could find her negatives.
« “[...] [I] should like to make another attempt at locating my own collection of documentary material, i.e. the considerable number of photographs (original negatives) which I took during my Bauhaus years. I wonder if there is anything you can recall, possibly from discussions with Moholy who took care of them when I left in 1933.
It did not occur to me to ask you earlier, or at any rate not until Sybil [sic] told me the negatives were stored in the house where you and Ise lived in Berlin. Is this correct? If so, can you remember when they were deposited there and, whether they were left there when you decided to come to England? Or were they moved elsewhere? [. . .]
So: if there is the slightest hope that my negatives may still be intact, I must do what I can to trace them. But how do I go about it? These negatives are irreplaceable documents which could be extremely useful, now more than ever. I am prepared to look into the matter myself, or request friends in Germany to do this for me. But I can do nothing unless I have a line to work on. Do you think you could advise me on this? I should be extremely grateful.” »
The legal dispute, which spanned three years, originated when Walter Gropius acknowledged possession of the negatives from the Bauhaus but declined to return them.
« Long years ago in Berlin, you gave all these negatives to me. I have carefully kept them, had copies made of all of them and have given a full set of copies to the Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard which has built up a special Bauhaus Department which is steadily growing. I have promised them the original negatives with your name attached as soon as I do not need them any more myself. Both Ise and myself remember this clearly. You will imagine that these photographs are extremely useful to me and that I have continuously made use of them; so I hope you will not deprive me of them. Wouldn’t it be sufficient if I sent you contact prints of the negatives? There are a great many, but I certainly understand that you want to make use of them yourself. Anyhow it will be a relief to you to know that they are in existence and in good shape. I have never left them out of hand.” »
In 1957, Schultz was able to recover 230 of the 560 negatives she had taken during her tenure at the Bauhaus. Concurrently, she reasserted her authorship over the photographs that had been published without her citation or compensation. The process of restoring her name and legacy to its rightful place spanned several years, but she was ultimately able to pay tribute to her work.
In 1959 Schultz moved to Zollikon, Switzerland, in the canton of Zurich, where she died in 1989 at the age of 95. From 1975 to 1985, she was a member of the Swiss section of the International Association of Art Critics: Swiss Section. In 1985, Rolf Sachsse, a German photographer and author, published her first biography.
Currently, her work is exhibited in museums across the globe, evoking the narrative of her misfortune and the subsequent reclamation of her legacy.
The historian's duty
Lucia Schultz's story illustrates the ethical and political complexities characteristic of the process of historical conservation, the issue of gender and authorships. Many women who played a significant role in the Bauhaus are shadowed by the male-peers. Her exclusion from the Bauhaus narrative for decades exemplifies the marginalization of women from art historical narratives. By reclaiming her negatives and her authorship, Schultz not only restored her implication in the Bauhaus as the unofficial photographer, but also put light into the other overlooked stories. In 2021 after doing an extensive research on the role of women in the Bauhaus, Anty Pansera published "491 – Bauhaus al femminile : 475 studentesse, 11 docenti, 6 donne intorno a Gropius, 1 manager, 1 fotografa"
Lucia Schultz's experience initiates a critical examination of the ways in which the erasure of women from historical and contemporary discourse has shaped the construction of art historical canons. It is necessary for historians to shed light on these stories, not only by providing detailed accounts—as is the case in this essay—but also by integrating them into a comprehensive narrative framework. This will ensure that the historical discourse on art is not divided along gender lines, resulting in the creation of separate male and female art histories.
*In this article I made the decision to refer to Lucia with her maiden name, nonetheless she is widely known as “Lucia Moholy”
Photographies:
Lucia Schultz. ‘Bauhaus Building by Walter Gropius (architect), view from Southwest’. Glass negative, 1927 (digital photograph by Norbert Schropp, 2012). Bauhaus-Archiv Berlin, # 2013 Artists Rights Society, New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn.
Lucia Schultz, ‘Bauhaus Building, Dessau, view from the vestibule window looking toward the workshop wing’. Classification: on paper, print. Medium: Photograph, gelatin silver print on paper,1926. Dimensions: image: 160 x 113 mm © Estate of Lucia Moholy / DACS 2024 .
Lucia Schultz, travel document, Récépissé de demande de carte d’identité, 1934 Bauhaus Archive Berlin, Lucia Moholy Archive, inventory no. 12433/11795.
Bibliographie
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