Hirschfeld-Mack, Ludwig

Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack (11 July 1893 – 7 January 1965) was a German-born Australian artist. His formative education was from 1912 until 1914 at the Debschitz-Schule, an art school in Munich founded by Wilhelm von Debschitz. Hirschfeld-Mack studied at the Bauhaus from 1919 until 1924 and remained working there until 1926 where, along with Kurt Schwerdtfeger, he further developed the Farblichtspiele (coloured-light-plays), which used a projection device to produce moving colours on a transparent screen accompanied by music composed by Hirschfeld-Mack. It is now regarded as an early form of multimedia. He was a participant, along with the former Bauhaus master Gertrud Grunow, in the II. Kongreß für Farbe-Ton-Forschung (Hamburg 1. – 5. Oktober 1930) (Second Congress for Colour-Sound Research). In 1923 he participated in the prestigious film festival Der Absolute Film in Berlin with other film producers such as Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling, Walter Ruttmann, Fernand Léger, Francis Picabia and René Clair. Music and colour theory remained lifelong interests, informing his art work in a number of media, and it was the inspiration for his well-respected and influential teaching.