lucia moholy: a hundred years of photography 1839-1939

as early as 1930, lucia moholy (1894-1989) had the idea of writing a "photo book" and began to research extensively. she fulfilled her aspiration to write a culturally and historically grounded history of photography by embedding the prerequisites, developments and achievements of the new medium in a broad context of political, economic, technical, aesthetic, artistic and socio-cultural contexts.

the publication was commissioned by the penguin publishing house and appeared in the series of "pelican specials" initiated in 1937. it is in the format of approx. 18 x 11 cm, comprised of 182 pages and 35 self selected photographs, which are bound on a smoothly coated paper as a block in the middle of the booklet. in addition, there are some reproductions of engravings from magazines integrated into the text. on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of photography, the publisher's intention to bring an inexpensive, generally understandable photo story to the market for a broad audience took hold: the print run of 40,000 copies of six pence each was sold out after a short time. photography as a mass-produced product, to which it undoubtedly already belonged in 1939, corresponded with the medium that took care of it, the paperback.

the standard work has now been reissued for the first time and translated into german.