El Lissitzky

Artist, graphic designer, architect, photographer, typographer

• Born: November 23, 1890
• Birthplace: Pochinok, Russia
• Died: December 30, 1941
• Place of death: Moscow, Russia

Also known as: Lazar Markovich Lissitzky

Education: Technische Hochschule (University of Technology); Riga Technological University

Significance: El Lissitzky was a Russian artist and architect. He played a key role in the Russian avant-garde art movement that emerged in the early 1900s. He was a promoter of the suprematist movement started by colleague Kazimir Malevich. Lissitzky designed multiple pieces of propaganda art for the Russian state following the rise of the Soviet Union. The artist also attempted to have some of his unconventional architectural designs brought to life in his later career, but only one such design came to fruition.

Background

El Lissitzky was born on November 23, 1890, in Pochinok, Russia. Pochinok was a small, primarily Jewish community. Lissitzky spent a great deal of his childhood in the town of Vitebsk. He later spent ten years living with his grandparents in Smolensk, where he attended secondary school. He began drawing at a young age and had become a skilled draughtsman, or maker of technical drawings, by the age of thirteen. The Jewish artist Yehuda Pen, founder of the School of Drawing and Painting in Vitebsk, noticed the young Lissitzky's work and began mentoring him.

Lissitzky was teaching his own students by the age of fifteen. His Jewish heritage prevented his admittance into the St. Petersburg Art Academy in 1909. Instead, he enrolled at the Technische Hochschule (University of Technology) in Germany and studied architectural engineering. His coursework included instruction in free drawing, during which he envisioned full-color illustrations of scenes from his youth. He could draw from memory the buildings and landscapes of Vitebsk and Smolensk as well as scenes from his travels across northern Italy in 1912. These early drawings were clearly influenced by the art nouveau movement as well as the symbolist movement.

The outbreak of World War I in 1914 forced Lissitzky to return to Russia. There, he earned a degree in architecture and engineering from the Riga Technological University in 1916. He spent the next few years studying his Jewish heritage and creating Jewish-themed artwork. When fellow Vitebsk artist Marc Chagall was appointed the town's commissar of arts, he recruited Lissitzky to teach at the town's newly opened art academy. The artist taught architecture and graphics. He also became acquainted with avant-garde artist Kazimir Malevich during his time at the academy. Malevich introduced Lissitzky to his suprematist philosophy of art, which championed a strictly abstract style that favored pure geometric form. Malevich's works featured flat geometric shapes such as triangles and squares, and he called his approach a "world of non-objectivity." Lissitzky's interactions with Malevich greatly shaped his future artistic endeavors.

Life's Work

Lissitzky had grown into a suprematism devotee by 1920, and he and Malevich cofounded the Exponents of the New Art, a suprematist artist group. Unlike many of his peers, Lissitzky's artwork harbored political symbolism. He created a propaganda poster titled Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge in 1919 that was a response to the Russian civil war. The artist eventually adapted suprematism into his own personal style in an effort to establish his originality. His works heavily focused on abstractionism. He called his style "Proun" and refused to provide the true meaning of this word to anyone. He produced a series of Proun paintings over the next few years, with his love for architecture evident in his creations. His works experimented with traditional architectural styles, with structures such as bridges and tall buildings appearing to float in a futuristic landscape.

The suprematist movement broke into two factions during the 1920s following Russia's transition to a socialist state. One group backed the utopian ideals of suprematism's original philosophy. The other group wanted suprematism utilized for socialism's industrial goals. Although Lissitzky's opinions veered toward the utilitarian group, the artist did not take sides in the divide. Lissitzky continued to teach at various art institutions, including Moscow's Higher State Art and Technical Workshops. Suprematism's hold on the Russian art scene began to loosen by the 1930s. Lissitzky moved to Germany to work as a graphic designer for various magazines and journals. He also routinely contributed to Soviet Russia's propaganda machine by designing posters.

Lissitzky was a supporter of Russia's new Soviet state. He desired to apply his architectural concepts into real-life architecture and began designing new skylines for Russian cities. His designs subscribed to the theories of the emerging constructivist art movement established by his friend and fellow artist Vladimir Tatlin. Although many of his creations were not plausible, as they defied the laws of gravity, some of his ideas were designed to be realized. His conception of horizontal skyscrapers was meant to contradict the American tradition of ever-heightening buildings.

Lissitzky spent his later career visiting Switzerland and Austria before settling permanently in Moscow in 1928 where he continued to teach as well as write and design. He experimented with a number of design concepts in the years to follow, testing the limits of artistic mediums such as typography, photography, and photomontage. Despite Soviet Russia's oppressive stance on the arts, Lissitzky remained a firm supporter of the new state and continued to produce propagandist art for his country.

The 1930s were a difficult time for the artist's health. Having been diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1923, Lissitzky struggled to keep his strength up in his later years. His final work of art was a propagandist photomontage promoting production of war supplies following Russia's entry into World War II (1939–1945). Lissitzky died on December 30, 1941, at his home outside of Moscow.

Impact

Lissitzky was a major contributor to the development of the suprematist and constructivist art movements. His work was also highly influential to artists and architects of Germany's Bauhaus art school and the De Stijl art movement that included artists such as Walter Gropius, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, and Wassily Kandinsky. His art also helped the cubist movement and the graphic design industry evolve over the later twentieth century. Lissitzky believed art could be goal oriented, and he strived to emphasize this point in everything he did, from art to architecture.

Personal Life

Lissitzky married Sophie Küppers in 1927. The pair had three children.

Principal Works

Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, 1919

Lenin Tribune,1920

Anxious One, 1920–21

The Globetrotter, 1920–21

Proun,1922

Kurt Schwitters,1924

Record, 1926

Zhurnalist, no. 1,1929

Tekhnicheskaia propaganda, 1933

Bibliography

"El Lissitzky." Cooper Hewitt, collection.cooperhewitt.org/people/404536751/bio. Accessed 4 Oct. 2017.

"El Lissitzky." Guggenheim, www.guggenheim.org/artwork/artist/el-lissitzky. Accessed 4 Oct. 2017.

"El Lissitzky Artist Overview and Analysis." TheArtStory.org, www.theartstory.org/artist-lissitzky-el.htm#biography‗header. Accessed 4 Oct. 2017.

"El Lissitzky: Biography & Quotes." Study.com, study.com/academy/lesson/el-lissitzky-biography-quotes.html. Accessed 4 Oct. 2017.

Tejeda, Isabel, et al. El Lissitzky: The Experience of Totality, edited by Oliva María Rubio, La Fábrica, 2014.

Tupitsyn, Margarita, et al. El Lissitzky: Beyond the Abstract Cabinet: Photography, Design, Collaboration. Yale UP, 1999.