Abstract :
"Relying on archival and published sources, this study of the Hungarian-
American artist Gyorgy Kepes (1906-2001) analyzes how his belief in the social role
of the artist—a belief he came to embrace prior to his arrival in the United States—
figured in his post-World War II practice as an artist, teacher, and cultural theorist. In
particular, it demonstrates that, like other modernists, Kepes responded to the
challenges of his epoch by conceiving of various paths to "wholeness" and "order."
Principal among these paths was the desire to enact an interdisciplinary "ethic" that
would lead to the "union of the arts and sciences." It shows how Kepes pursued these
stated ideals—which resonated with emerging postwar concepts of universal
structures evident in the Unity of Science movement and linguistics—by advocating
for collaborations between artists and scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, where he taught from 1946 to 1974, and by integrating scientific
photographs into his books and exhibitions. While I acknowledge Kepes's
indebtedness to the Hungarian artist Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, with whom he has
traditionally been associated, I have sought to focus on the social and intellectual
currents that induced Kepes to expand Moholy-Nagy's general interest in technology
and science into an all-encompassing aesthetic credo. Kepes took the modernist ideal
of a social and technological Utopia into the late twentieth century, where its biases
toward "modern man" eventually came under attack.
The dissertation is divided into an Introduction and four chapters. The
Introduction outlines the topic in relation to the extant literature on Kepes. Chapter
One demonstrates the significance of Kepes's early career in Budapest, Berlin, and
London to his postwar activities in the United States. Chapter Two discusses his
experiences in Chicago, where he taught photography, graphic design, and
advertising at the New Bauhaus. Chapter Three analyzes Kepes's teaching,
exhibition, and publication initiatives at MIT. Chapter Four documents the founding
of the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at MIT in 1967, where Kepes pursued art
projects on a "civic scale" in an effort to encourage a sense of community during a
period of tumultuous social unrest.