Nathan Lerner

Nathan Lerner 1913–1997

Lerner was born into a family of Ukrainian immigrants. His talent was discovered at a young age by László Moholy-Nagy, who enrolled him as one of the first students at the New Bauhaus and later became the school's teacher. Although Lerner is often referred to as the heir to the Bauhaus school of modern art or as one of the photographers of the Chicago School, he has worked in a wide variety of fields throughout his career, including painting, photography, film, product design, and architecture.
This exhibition introduces Lerner's diverse career through early paintings, compositional reliefs, avant-garde photographs of his experiments with light, portraits of people living through difficult times in the 1930s, and both photographs and product design drawings made in Japan in the 1970s. It is the first exhibition to be held in Japan.
The catalogue Nathan Lerner 1913-1997 (written by Toshino Iguchi) has published in conjunction with this exhibition.