7 A. M. New Year's Morning, circa 1930, Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC.
It's not clear whether László Moholy-Nagy (1895-1946) took this photograph in Paris, although he was there around the beginning of the new decade. It is a thoroughly modern vignette on what may be the quietest morning in the urban year. Sometime overnight a 'Hollywood snow' fell, frosting the streets with charm, causing no trouble at all. A couple crosses the street as the man makes a jaunty gesture, perhaps toward the sun, seemingly oblivious to the person on the bicycle wearing a clown costume. A happy new year.
4 comments:
Happy New Year, Jane.
Wonderful picture. I'm not so sure that the cyclist is in clown costume. Just a thought - if it is Paris could it be a man in baker's white overalls returning from a delivery of baguettes? I've seen a picture of a similar bicycle with basket used for bread delivery in Saigon during its French colonial past.
Your idea makes sense; it would explain why someone would be out at that early hour. I recently saw Michelaneglo Antonioni's film 'Blow Up' and there were people similarly dressed, in a deserted field. Hmm. Happy New Year to you, too.
Moholy-Nagy was one of my all time favourite Bauhaus stars. Bloody brilliant I call him: skilled in painting, photography, print-making, industrial design etc etc. Most of us have trouble being skilled in one area.
The Germans were insane closing down The Bauhaus. Lucky Paris, London and Chicago!
Hels, I first saw this photgraph at a group exhibition at the Metropolitan and it leaped out at me from the crowd, so that supports your point. I wonder if any of the three persons in the picture ever saw it?
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