László Peri in Berlin, 1923

László Peri (British, born Hungary. 1899–1967)
Wandgestaltung (Wall design), c. 1967 (after a 1924 drawing)
Screenprint, 13 1/8 × 18 ¼” (33.4 × 46.4 cm)
Printed in an edition of 50–100 copies late in the artist’s life, or posthumously.
Formerly Merrill C. Berman Collection,
now The Museum of Modern Art, New York (SC776.2019)

Inscribed: Wandgestaltung. Original-Wandgrosse.
17 x 7 m [17 metres x 7 metres]. Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung.
Peri 1924 (Wall design. Original wall dimensions 17 x 7 meters.
Great Berlin Art Exhibition. Peri 1924)

This screenprint reproduces an extant gouache of roughly the same dimensions. Created in 1924, the gouache commemorated László Peri’s Raumkonstruktionen (Space Constructions), a large-scale, three-part work, possibly executed in painted wood, which was displayed in the Novembergruppe (November Group) section of the Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung (Great Berlin Art Exhibition) in 1923.

Peri’s Raumkonstruktionen appeared in gallery 26 of the 1923 Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung, alongside drawings, models, and photographs of architectural projects by Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Mart Stam, Jan Wils, and others.

Photographer unknown. Installation view of the Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung (Great Berlin Art Exhibition), Landesausstellungsgebäude am Lehrter Bahnhof, Berlin (May 19–September 17, 1923), gallery 25, Novembergruppe, including works by Hendryk Berlewi, Franciska Clausen, Walter Dexel, Hannah Höch, László Moholy-Nagy, Arthur Segal. Bundesarchiv.

Unfortunately, no installation photographs of gallery 26 are known to survive, but this shot of the preceding gallery provides a sense of hall’s grand scale.

Photomontage of El Lissitzky’s Prounen-Raum, from four photographs of its installation at the 1923 Grosse Berliner Kunstausstellung as reproduced in
G: Material zur elementaren Gestaltung, no. 1 (July 1923): back cover.
Image: Beinecke Library, Yale

Peri was not alone in presenting a hybrid, cross-media architectural installation at this landmark exhibition: nearby were Max Burchartz’s model for an Eckkomposition (corner composition); Vilmos Huszár’s Entwürfe für räumliche Farbgestaltung (Designs for spatial color design); and El Lissitzky’s Prounen-Raum.

Raumkonstruktion 7 (Space Construction 7), 1922–23
Both: Linoleum cut, composition (irreg.): 8 1/4 × 11 1/4″ (21 × 28.5 cm);
sheet: 12 3/8 × 15 1/8″ (31.4 × 38.4 cm)
Publisher: Verlag Der Sturm, Berlin
Formerly Merrill C. Berman Collection,
now The Museum of Modern Art, New York
(469.2018 and 470.2018)

Raumkonstruktion 8 (Space Construction 8), 1922–23
Both: Linoleum cut, composition (irreg.): 6 1/8 × 7 7/8″ (15.5 × 20 cm)
Sheet: left, 12 13/16 × 9 9/16″ (32.6 × 24.3 cm);
right, 12 1/2 × 10 5/8″ (31.8 × 27 cm)
Publisher: Verlag Der Sturm, Berlin
Formerly Merrill C. Berman Collection,
now The Museum of Modern Art, New York
(471.2018 and 472.2018)

July 11, 2023