György Kepes �ɟøɾɟ ˈkɛpɛʃ(October 4, 1906 – December 29, 2001) was a Hungarian-born painter, photographer, designer, educator, and art theorist. After immigrating to the U.S. in 1937, he taught design at the New Bauhaus (later the School of Design, then Institute of Design, then Illinois Institute of Design or IIT) in

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Count ...

. In 1967 he founded the

Center for Advanced Visual Studies The MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology (ACT) has its origins in the Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an arts and research center founded in 1967 by artist and teacher György Kepes ...

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of th ...

(MIT) where he taught until his retirement in 1974.

Early years

Kepes was born in Selyp, Hungary. His younger brother was Imre Kepes, ambassador in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...

, father of András Kepes, a journalist, documentary filmmaker and author. At age 18, he enrolled at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population o ...

, where he studied for four years with Istvan Csok, a Hungarian impressionist painter. In the same period, he was also influenced by the socialist avant-garde poet and painter Lajos Kassak, and began to search for means by which he could contribute to the alleviation of social injustice, especially (as he later recalled) "the inhumane conditions of the Hungarian peasantry."

Berlin and London

Kepes gave up painting temporarily and turned instead to filmmaking. In 1930, he settled in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

, where he worked as a publication, exhibition and stage designer. Around this time, he designed the dust jacket for Gestalt psychologist

Rudolf Arnheim Rudolf Arnheim (July 15, 1904 – June 9, 2007) was a German-born writer, art and film theorist, and perceptual psychologist. He learned Gestalt psychology from studying under Max Wertheimer and Wolfgang Köhler at the University of Berlin and ap ...

's famous book, ''Film als Kunst'' (Film as Art), one of the first published books on film theory. In Berlin, he was also invited to join the design studio of

László Moholy-Nagy László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the ...

, the Hungarian photographer who had taught at the Dessau

Bauhaus The Staatliches Bauhaus (), commonly known as the Bauhaus (), was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts.Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 4th edn., 20 ...

. When, in 1936, Moholy relocated his design studio to

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, Kepes joined him there as well.

New Bauhaus

A fortunate consequence of moving to London was that Kepes found his future wife, a 17-year-old British woman née Juliet Appleby, an artist and illustrator. By chance, he saw her on the street, introduced himself, and soon the two began to date. The following year, when Moholy agreed to become the director of a new art school in Chicago (which Moholy dubbed the New Bauhaus), Kepes was invited to join the faculty and to head a curricular area in Light and Color. Kepes asked Juliet to join him. While teaching at the Institute of Design (or New Bauhaus) from 1937 to 1943, Kepes enlarged and refined his ideas about design theory, form in relation to function, and (his own term) the "education of vision." Kepes was lured to

Brooklyn College , mottoeng = Nothing without great effort , established = , parent = CUNY , type = Public university , endowment = $98.0 million (2019) , budget = $123.96 m ...

by Russian-born architect Serge Chermayeff, who had been appointed chair of the Art Department in 1942. There he taught graphic artists such as

Saul Bass Saul Bass (; May 8, 1920 – April 25, 1996) was an American graphic designer and Oscar-winning filmmaker, best known for his design of motion-picture title sequences, film posters, and corporate logos. During his 40-year career, Bass wor ...

. In 1944, he published ''Language of Vision'', an influential book about design and design education. Widely used for many years as a college textbook (it had thirteen printings, in four languages), it began by acknowledging Kepes' indebtedness to the Berlin-based Gestalt psychologists, and by asserting that "Visual communication is universal and international; it knows no limits of tongue, vocabulary, or grammar, and it can be perceived by the illiterate as well as by the literate… he visual arts, asthe optimum forms of the language of vision, are, therefore, an invaluable educational medium" (p. 13). In part, the book was important because it predated three other influential texts on the same subject:

Paul Rand Paul Rand (born Peretz Rosenbaum; August 15, 1914 – November 26, 1996) was an American art director and graphic designer, best known for his corporate Logotype, logo designs, including the logos for IBM, United Parcel Service, UPS, Enron, Morn ...

, ''Thoughts on Design'' (1946),

, ''Vision in Motion'' (1947), and

, ''Art and Visual Perception'' (1954). In 1942, Kepes had been one of a number of people (Moholy was another) who were asked by the U.S. Army to offer advice on military and civilian urban

camouflage Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the b ...

, in the course of which he viewed Chicago from the air. He alluded to this experience in ''Language of Vision'', when he talked about natural camouflage: "The numerous optical devices which nature employs in the animal world to conceal animals from their enemies reveal the workings of this law .e., perceptual groupingof visual organization" (p. 45).

Years at MIT

In 1947, Kepes accepted an invitation from the School of Architecture and Planning at MIT to initiate a program there in visual design, a division that later became the

(c1968). He served as a director of this center until 1972. Some of the Center's early fellows included artists

Otto Piene Otto Piene (pronounced PEE-nah, 18 April 1928 – 17 July 2014) was a German-American artist specializing in kinetic and technology-based art, often working collaboratively. He lived and worked in Düsseldorf, Germany; Cambridge, Massachusetts; ...

Panayiotis Vassilakis Panayiotis Vassilakis ( el, Παναγιώτης Βασιλάκης; 29 October 1925 – 9 August 2019), also known as Takis ( el, Τάκις), was a self-taught Greek artist known for his kinetic sculptures. He exhibited his artworks in Europe ...

Jack Burnham Jack Wesley Burnham Jr. (born New York City, November 13, 1931 - February 25, 2019) was an American writer and theorist of art and technology, who taught art history at Northwestern University and the University of Maryland. He is one of the mai ...

Wen-Ying Tsai Wen-Ying Tsai (; October 13, 1928 – January 2, 2013) was a Chinese-American pioneer cybernetic sculptor and kinetic artist best known for creating sculptures using electric motors, stainless steel rods, stroboscopic light, and audio feedba ...

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Maryanne Amacher Maryanne Amacher (February 25, 1938 – October 22, 2009) was an American composer and installation artist. She is known for working extensively with a family of psychoacoustic phenomena called auditory distortion products (also known as dis ...

, Joan Brigham, Lowry Burgess,

Peter Campus Peter Campus (born 1937 in New York, NY), often styled as peter campus, is an American artist and a pioneer of new media and video art, known for his interactive video installations, single-channel video works, and photography. His work is held ...

, Muriel Cooper, Douglas Davis, Susan Gamble, Dieter Jung, Piotr Kowalski,

Charlotte Moorman Madeline Charlotte Moorman (November 18, 1933 – November 8, 1991) was an American cellist, performance artist, and advocate for avant-garde music. Referred to as the "Jeanne d'Arc of new music", she was the founder of the Annual Avant Garde Fes ...

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Yvonne Rainer Yvonne Rainer (born November 24, 1934) is an American dancer, choreographer, and filmmaker, whose work in these disciplines is regarded as challenging and experimental.

, Keiko Prince,

Alan Sonfist Alan Sonfist is a New York City based American artist best known as a "pioneer" and a "trailblazer" of the Land or Earth Art movement. He first gained prominence for his " Time Landscape" found on the corner of West Houston Street and LaGuardia ...

Aldo Tambellini Aldo Tambellini (29 April 1930 – 12 November 2020) was an Italian-American artist. He pioneered electronic intermedia, and was a painter, sculptor, and poet. He died at age 90, in November 2020. Childhood Aldo Tambellini was born in Syracus ...

Joe Davis Joseph Davis (15 April 190110 July 1978) was an English professional snooker and English billiards player. He was the dominant figure in snooker from the 1920s to the 1950s, and has been credited with inventing aspects of the way the game is ...

, Bill Seaman,

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, Alejandro Sina, Don Ritter, Luc Courchesne, and Bill Parker. While teaching at MIT (where he remained until his retirement in 1974), Kepes was in contact with a wide assortment of artists, designers, architects and scientists, among them

Pietro Belluschi Pietro Belluschi (August 18, 1899 – February 14, 1994) was an Italian-American architect. A leading figure in modern architecture, he was responsible for the design of over 1,000 buildings.Belluschi, Pietro. (2007). In ''Encyclopædia Britanni ...

Norbert Wiener Norbert Wiener (November 26, 1894 – March 18, 1964) was an American mathematician and philosopher. He was a professor of mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). A child prodigy, Wiener later became an early researcher ...

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, Rudolf Arnheim,

Marcel Breuer Marcel Lajos Breuer ( ; 21 May 1902 – 1 July 1981), was a Hungarian-born modernist architect and furniture designer. At the Bauhaus he designed the Wassily Chair and the Cesca Chair, which ''The New York Times'' have called some of the most i ...

Charles Eames Charles Ormond Eames Jr. (June 17, 1907 – August 21, 1978) was an American designer, architect and filmmaker. In professional partnership with his spouse Ray Kaiser Eames, he was responsible for groundbreaking contributions in the field of a ...

Erik Erikson Erik Homburger Erikson (born Erik Salomonsen; 15 June 1902 – 12 May 1994) was a German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on psychological development of human beings. He coined the phrase identity ...

Walter Gropius Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-American architect and founder of the Bauhaus School, who, along with Alvar Aalto, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, is widely regarded as one ...

, Maurice K Smith, and

Jerome Wiesner Jerome Bert Wiesner (May 30, 1915 – October 21, 1994) was a professor of electrical engineering, chosen by President John F. Kennedy as chairman of his Science Advisory Committee (PSAC). Educated at the University of Michigan, Wiesner was asso ...

. His own art having moved toward abstract painting, he developed a parallel interest in new scientific imagery, in part because it too had grown increasing "abstract." In 1956, what began as an exhibition became a highly unusual book, ''The New Landscape in Art and Science'', in which Modern-era artwork was paired with scientific images that were made, not with the unaided eye, but with such then "high tech" devices as

x-ray An X-ray, or, much less commonly, X-radiation, is a penetrating form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. Most X-rays have a wavelength ranging from 10 picometers to 10 nanometers, corresponding to frequencies in the range 30&nb ...

machines, stroboscopic photography, electron microscopes,

sonar Sonar (sound navigation and ranging or sonic navigation and ranging) is a technique that uses sound propagation (usually underwater, as in submarine navigation) to navigate, measure distances (ranging), communicate with or detect objects on o ...

radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, Marine radar, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor v ...

, high-powered

telescopes A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to observ ...

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of Light, visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from ...

sensors and so on. His theories on visual perception and, particularly, his personal mentorship, had a profound influence on young MIT architecture, planning, and visual art students. These include Kevin Lynch (The Image of the City) and Maurice K Smith (Associative Form and Field theory). Kepes and his wife Juliet Appleby Kepes are memorialized at Mt. Auburn Cemetery, Cambridge, MA, where Kepes died in 2001. The markers are of wood and stone, respectively, and are tall and rectangular in proportion. The Friends of Mt. Auburn provide further information about the stones and their design by grandson Janos Stone.

Vision + Value

In 1965–66, Kepes edited a set of six anthologies, published as a series called the Vision + Value Series. Each volume contained more than 200 pages of essays by some of the most prominent artists, designers, architects and scientists of the time. The richness of the volumes is reflected in their titles: ''The Education of Vision''; ''Structure in Art and Science''; ''The Nature and Art of Motion''; ''Module, Symmetry, Proportion, Rhythm''; ''Sign, Image, Symbol''; and ''The Man-Made Object''. In his lifetime, Kepes produced other books of lasting importance, among them ''Graphic Forms: Art as Related to the Book'' (1949); ''Arts of Environment'' (1972); and ''The Visual Arts Today'' (1960). He was also a prolific painter and photographer, and his work is in major collections. In recognition of his achievements, there is a Kepes Visual Centre in Eger,

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...

. In 1973 he was elected into the

National Academy of Design The National Academy of Design is an honorary association of American artists, founded in New York City in 1825 by Samuel Morse, Asher Durand, Thomas Cole, Martin E. Thompson, Charles Cushing Wright, Ithiel Town, and others "to promote the ...

as an Associate member and became a full Academician in 1978.

Writings

* ''Language of Vision''. Chicago: Paul Theobald, 1944. Reissued: New York: Dover Publications, 1995. . * ''Graphic Forms: The Arts as Related to the Book''. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1949. * ''The New Landscape in Art and Science''. Chicago: Paul Theobald, 1956. * Vision + Value Series, including ''The Education of Vision''. ''Structure in Art and Science''. ''The Nature and Art of Motion''. ''Module, Symmetry, Proportion, Rhythm''. ''Sign, Image, Symbol''. ''The Man-Made Object''. New York: George Braziller, 1965–66. * ''The Visual Arts Today''. Wesleyan University Press, 1966. * The Lost Pageantry of Nature. ''Artscanada'', pages 33–39, Dec 1968. * ''Arts of Environment''. New York: George Braziller, 1972. * ''György Kepes: The MIT Years 1945–77''. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 1978. * György Kepes, Lucian Bernard, and Ivan Chermayeff. ''The 60th Art Directors Annual''. New York: ADC Publications, 1981

References

External links

"György Kepes, founder of CAVS, dies at 95"

György Kepes as a contributor to PM magazine.

Art Directors Club biography, portrait and images of work

The György Kepes Fellowship for Advanced Studies and Transdisciplinary Research in Art, Culture, and Technology
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kepes, Gyoergy 1906 births 2001 deaths 20th-century Hungarian people 20th-century American painters American male painters American muralists Hungarian painters Hungarian expatriates in Germany Hungarian expatriates in the United Kingdom Hungarian emigrants to the United States People from Heves County 20th-century American photographers Brooklyn College faculty Burials at Mount Auburn Cemetery 20th-century American male artists Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters