The personal papers of artist, designer, and visual theorist György Kepes.

Artist, designer, and visual theorist György Kepes was born in 1906 in Selyp, Hungary. Originally associated with Germany's Bauhaus as a colleague of László Moholy-Nagy, he emigrated to the United States in 1937 to teach Light and Color at Moholy's New Bauhaus (soon to be called the Institute of Design) in Chicago. In 1944, he produced Language of Vision, a landmark book about design theory, followed by the publication of six Kepes-edited anthologies in a series called Vision + Value as well as several other books. In addition to being a prolific painter and photographer, Kepes relentlessly explored the various crossed paths between art and the sciences. In 1956, The New Landscape in Art and Science, an exhibition (and later book) focused on these interests, gathering scientific imagery including x-ray, infra-red, microscope and telescope photographs. Several original panels from this exhibition are present in the collection. Kepes began teaching at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1947, first as an associate professor of visual design and becoming a full professor in 1949. As the first artist-in-residence, he encouraged collaboration between artists, designers, architects, and engineers by organizing seminars, workshops and exhibitions. In 1967 Kepes founded MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) and was its director until 1972, retiring two years later. Kepes died in 2001 at the age of 95.

113 Linear Feet (108 boxes, 68 flat boxes, 8 cartons, 4 card boxes, 4 half-boxes, 2 map-folders, 1 tube)

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