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Constructivism (art)
Encyclopedia
Constructivism was an art
istic and architectural
philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th century, influencing major trends such as Bauhaus
and the De Stijl
movement. Its influence was pervasive, with major impacts upon architecture, graphic and industrial design, theatre, film, dance, fashion and to some extent music.
The term Construction Art was first used as a derisive term by Kazimir Malevich
to describe the work of Alexander Rodchenko
in 1917. Constructivism first appears as a positive term in Naum Gabo
's Realistic Manifesto
of 1920. Alexei Gan used the word as the title of his book Constructivism, which was printed in 1922. Constructivism was a post-World War I development of Russian Futurism
, and particularly of the 'corner-counter reliefs' of Vladimir Tatlin
, which had been exhibited in 1915. The term itself would be invented by the sculptors Antoine Pevsner
and Naum Gabo
, who developed an industrial, angular style of work, while its geometric abstraction owed something to the Suprematism
of Kasimir Malevich. IZO, the Commissariat's artistic bureau, was managed during the Russian Civil War
mainly by Futurists, who published the journal Art of the Commune. Constructivism in Moscow was represented by VKhUTEMAS
, the school for art and design established in 1919. Gabo later stated that teaching at the school emphasized political and ideological discussion rather than art-making. Despite this, Gabo himself designed a radio transmitter in 1920 (and would submit a design to the Palace of the Soviets competition in 1930).
Constructivism as theory and practice was derived largely from a series of debates at INKhUK (Institute of Artistic Culture) in Moscow, from 1920–22. After deposing its first chairman, Wassily Kandinsky
, for his 'mysticism', The First Working Group of Constructivists (including Liubov Popova, Alexander Vesnin
, Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova
, and the theorists Alexei Gan, Boris Arvatov and Osip Brik
) would develop a definition of Constructivism as the combination of faktura
: the particular material properties of an object, and tektonika, its spatial presence. Initially the Constructivists worked on three-dimensional constructions as a means of participating in industry: the OBMOKhU (Society of Young Artists) exhibition showed these three dimensional compositions, by Rodchenko, Stepanova, Karl Ioganson and the Stenberg Brothers. Later the definition would be extended to designs for two-dimensional works such as books or posters, with montage and factography becoming important concepts.
As much as involving itself in designs for industry, the Constructivists worked on public festivals and street designs for the post-October revolution Bolshevik government. Perhaps the most famous of these was in Vitebsk
, where Malevich's UNOVIS
Group painted propaganda plaques and buildings (the best known being El Lissitzky
's poster Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1919)). Inspired by Vladimir Mayakovsky
's declaration 'the streets our brushes, the squares our palettes', artists and designers participated in public life during the Civil War. A striking instance was the proposed festival for the Comintern
congress in 1921 by Alexander Vesnin and Liubov Popova, which resembled the constructions of the OBMOKhU exhibition as well as their work for the theatre. There was a great deal of overlap during this period between Constructivism and Proletkult
, the ideas of which concerning the need to create an entirely new culture struck a chord with the Constructivists. In addition some Constructivists were heavily involved in the 'ROSTA Windows', a Bolshevik public information campaign of around 1920. Some of the most famous of these were by the poet-painter Vladimir Mayakovsky
and Vladimir Lebedev.
The constructivists tried to create works that would make the viewer an active viewer of the artwork. In this it had similarities with the Russian Formalists' theory of 'making strange', and accordingly their main theorist Viktor Shklovsky
worked closely with the Constructivists, as did other formalists like Osip Brik. These theories were tested in theatre, particularly with the work of Vsevolod Meyerhold
, who had established what he called 'October in the theatre'. Meyerhold developed a 'biomechanical' acting style, which was influenced both by the circus and by the 'scientific management' theories of Frederick Winslow Taylor
. Meanwhile the stage sets by the likes of Vesnin, Popova and Stepanova tested Constructivist spatial ideas in a public form. A more populist version of this was developed by Alexander Tairov
, with stage sets by Aleksandra Ekster
and the Stenberg Brothers. These ideas would influence German directors like Bertolt Brecht
and Erwin Piscator
, as well as the early Soviet cinema.
asserted a spiritual core for the movement. This was opposed to the utilitarian and adaptable version of Constructivism held by Tatlin and Rodchenko. Tatlin's work was immediately hailed by artists in Germany as a revolution in art: a 1920 photograph shows George Grosz
and John Heartfield
holding a placard saying 'Art is Dead – Long Live Tatlin's Machine Art', while the designs for the tower were published in Bruno Taut
's magazine Fruhlicht.
Tatlin's tower started a period of exchange of ideas between Moscow and Berlin, something reinforced by El Lissitzky
and Ilya Ehrenburg
's Soviet-German magazine Veshch-Gegenstand-Objet which spread the idea of 'Construction art', as did the Constructivist exhibits at the 1922 Russische Ausstellung in Berlin, organised by Lissitzky. A 'Constructivist international' was formed, which met with Dadaists and De Stijl artists in Germany in 1922. Participants in this short-lived international included Lissitzky, Hans Richter
, and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
. However the idea of 'art' was becoming anathema to the Russian Constructivists: the INKhUK debates of 1920–22 had culminated in the theory of Productivism
propounded by Osip Brik and others, which demanded direct participation in industry and the end of easel painting. Tatlin was one of the first to attempt to transfer his talents to industrial production, with his designs for an economical stove, for workers' overalls and for furniture. The Utopian element in Constructivism was maintained by his 'letatlin', a flying machine which he worked on until the 1930s.
was established in the Soviet Union, which reintroduced a limited state capitalism in the Soviet economy. Rodchenko, Stepanova, and others made advertising for the co-operatives that were now in competition with commercial businesses. The poet-artist Vladimir Mayakovsky
and Rodchenko worked together and called themselves "advertising constructors". Together they designed eye-catching images featuring bright colours, geometric shapes, and bold lettering. The lettering of most of these designs was intended to create a reaction, and function emotionally – most were designed for the state-owned department store Mosselprom in Moscow, for pacifiers, cooking oil, beer and other quotidian products, with Mayakovsky claiming that his 'nowhere else but Mosselprom' verse was one of the best he ever wrote.
Additionally, several artists tried to work with clothes design with varying success: Varvara Stepanova designed dresses with bright, geometric patterns that were mass-produced, although workers' overalls by Tatlin and Rodchenko never achieved this and remained prototypes. The painter and designer Lyubov Popova
designed a kind of Constructivist flapper
dress before her early death in 1924, the plans for which were published in the journal LEF
. In these works Constructivists showed a willingness to involve themselves in fashion and the mass market, which they tried to balance with their Communist beliefs.
, (which had two series, from 1923–5 and from 1927–9 as New LEF). LEF was dedicated to maintaining the avant-garde against the critiques of the incipient Socialist Realism
, and the possibility of a capitalist restoration, with the journal being particularly scathing about the 'NEPmen', the capitalists of the period. For LEF the new medium of cinema was more important than the easel painting and traditional narratives that elements of the Communist Party were trying to revive then. Important Constructivists were very involved with cinema, with Mayakovsky acting in the film The Young Lady and the Hooligan (1919), Rodchenko's designs for the intertitles and animated sequences of Dziga Vertov
's Kino Eye (1924), and Aleksandra Ekster
designed the sets and costumes for the science fiction film Aelita
(1924).
The Productivist theorists Osip Brik and Sergei Tretyakov
also wrote screenplays and intertitles, for films such as Vsevolod Pudovkin
's Storm over Asia (1928) or Victor Turin's Turksib (1929). The filmmakers and LEF contributors Dziga Vertov and Sergei Eisenstein
as well as the documentarist Esfir Shub
also regarded their fast-cut, montage style of filmmaking as Constructivist. The early Eccentrist movies of Grigori Kozintsev
and Leonid Trauberg
(The New Babylon
, Alone) had similarly avant-garde intentions, as well as a fixation on jazz-age America which was characteristic of the philosophy, with its praise of slapstick-comedy actors like Charlie Chaplin
or Buster Keaton
, as well as of Fordist mass production. Like the photomontages and designs of Constructivism, early Soviet cinema concentrated on creating an agitational effect by montage and 'making strange'.
. Gustav Klutsis' 'Dynamic City' and 'Lenin and Electrification' (1919–20) are the first examples of this method of montage, which had in common with Dadaism the collaging together of news photographs and painted sections. However Constructivist montages would be less 'destructive' than those of Dadaism. Perhaps the most famous of these montages was Rodchenko's illustrations of the Mayakovsky poem About This.
LEF also helped popularise a distinctive style of photography, involving jagged angles and contrasts and an abstract use of light, which paralleled the work of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
in Germany: the major practitioners of this included, along with Rodchenko, Boris Ignatovich and Max Penson
, among others. This also shared many characteristics with the early documentary movement. Meanwhile LEF produced an architectural version, the OSA group directed by Alexander Vesnin
and Moisei Ginzburg
– for more information see Constructivist architecture
.
. Many Constructivists worked on the design of posters for everything from cinema to political propaganda: the former represented best by the brightly coloured, geometric posters of the Stenberg brothers (Georgii and Vladimir Stenberg
), and the latter by the agitational photomontage work of Gustav Klutsis
and Valentina Kulagina.
The Constructivists' main early political patron was Leon Trotsky
, and it began to be regarded with suspicion after the expulsion of Trotsky and the Left Opposition in 1927-8. The Communist Party
would gradually favour realist art during the course of the 1920s (as early as 1918 Pravda
had complained that government funds were being used to buy works by untried artists). However it was not until about 1934 that the counter-doctrine of Socialist Realism
was instituted in Constructivism's place. Many Constructivists continued to produce avantgarde work in the service of the state, such as Lissitzky, Rodchenko and Stepanova's designs for the magazine USSR In Construction.
Constructivist architecture emerged from the wider constructivist art movement. After the Russian Revolution of 1917
it turned its attentions to the new social demands and industrial tasks required of the new regime. Two distinct threads emerged, the first was encapsulated in Antoine Pevsner
's and Naum Gabo
's Realist manifesto which was concerned with space and rhythm, the second represented a struggle within the Commissariat for Enlightenment between those who argued for pure art and the Productivists
such as Alexander Rodchenko
, Varvara Stepanova
and Vladimir Tatlin
, a more socially-oriented group who wanted this art to be absorbed in industrial production.
A split occurred in 1922 when Pevsner and Gabo emigrated. The movement then developed along socially utilitarian lines. The productivist majority gained the support of the Proletkult
and the magazine LEF
, and later became the dominant influence of the architectural group O.S.A.
schools in Germany, and some of the VKhUTEMAS teaching methods were adopted and developed there. Gabo established a version of Constructivism in England during the 1930s and 1940s that was adopted by architects, designers and artists after World War II (see Victor Pasmore
), and John McHale
. Joaquín Torres García
and Manuel Rendón were instrumental in spreading Constructivism throughout Europe and Latin America. Constructivism had an effect on the modern masters of Latin America such as: Carlos Mérida
, Enrique Tábara
, Aníbal Villacís
, Theo Constanté
, Oswaldo Viteri
, Estuardo Maldonado
, Luis Molinari
, Carlos Catasse
, João Batista Vilanova Artigas
and Oscar Niemeyer
, to name just a few. There have also been disciples in Australia, the painter George Johnson being the best known.
In the 1980s graphic designer Neville Brody
used styles based on Constructivist posters that initiated a revival of popular interest. Also during the 1980s designer Ian Anderson founded The Designers Republic
, a successful and influential design company which uses constructivist principles.
So-called Deconstructivist
architecture was developed by architects Zaha Hadid
, Rem Koolhaas
and others during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Zaha Hadid by her sketches and drawings of abstract triangles and rectangles evokes the aesthetic of constructivism. Though similar formally, the socialist political connotations of Russian constructivism are deemphasized by Hadid's deconstructivism. Rem Koolhaas' projects revive another aspect of constructivism. The scaffold and crane
-like structures represented by many constructivist architects are used for the finished forms of his designs and buildings.
Cinematic influences include Bulgarian born animator Theodore Ushev
's 2006 brief film Tower Bawher
. Inspired by Russian constructivist art, the animated short features visual references to artists of the era including Vertov, Stenberg, Rodchenko, Lissitsky and Popova.
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
istic and architectural
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
philosophy that originated in Russia beginning in 1919, which was a rejection of the idea of autonomous art. The movement was in favour of art as a practice for social purposes. Constructivism had a great effect on modern art movements of the 20th century, influencing major trends such as Bauhaus
Bauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
and the De Stijl
De Stijl
De Stijl , propagating the group's theories. Next to van Doesburg, the group's principal members were the painters Piet Mondrian , Vilmos Huszár , and Bart van der Leck , and the architects Gerrit Rietveld , Robert van 't Hoff , and J.J.P. Oud...
movement. Its influence was pervasive, with major impacts upon architecture, graphic and industrial design, theatre, film, dance, fashion and to some extent music.
Beginnings
Kazimir Malevich
Kazimir Severinovich Malevich was a Russian painter and art theoretician, born of ethnic Polish parents. He was a pioneer of geometric abstract art and the originator of the Avant-garde Suprematist movement.-Early life:...
to describe the work of Alexander Rodchenko
Alexander Rodchenko
Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko was a Russian artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism and Russian design; he was married to the artist Varvara Stepanova....
in 1917. Constructivism first appears as a positive term in Naum Gabo
Naum Gabo
Naum Gabo KBE, born Naum Neemia Pevsner was a prominent Russian sculptor in the Constructivism movement and a pioneer of Kinetic Art.-Early life:...
's Realistic Manifesto
Realistic Manifesto
The Realistic Manifesto, was written by sculptor Naum Gabo and cosigned by his brother Antoine Pevsner, and is a key text of Constructivism. The manifesto laid out their theories about artistic expression. The Manifesto focused largely on divorcing art from such conventions as use of lines,...
of 1920. Alexei Gan used the word as the title of his book Constructivism, which was printed in 1922. Constructivism was a post-World War I development of Russian Futurism
Russian Futurism
Russian Futurism is the term used to denote a group of Russian poets and artists who adopted the principles of Filippo Marinetti's "Manifesto of Futurism"...
, and particularly of the 'corner-counter reliefs' of Vladimir Tatlin
Vladimir Tatlin
Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin was a Russian and Soviet painter and architect. With Kazimir Malevich he was one of the two most important figures in the Russian avant-garde art movement of the 1920s, and he later became the most important artist in the Constructivist movement...
, which had been exhibited in 1915. The term itself would be invented by the sculptors Antoine Pevsner
Antoine Pevsner
Antoine Pevsner was a Belarusian and Russian sculptor and the older brother of Alexii Pevsner and Naum Gabo. Both Antoine and Naum are considered pioneers of twentieth-century sculpture.Pevsner was born in Klimavichy, Belarus...
and Naum Gabo
Naum Gabo
Naum Gabo KBE, born Naum Neemia Pevsner was a prominent Russian sculptor in the Constructivism movement and a pioneer of Kinetic Art.-Early life:...
, who developed an industrial, angular style of work, while its geometric abstraction owed something to the Suprematism
Suprematism
Suprematism was an art movement focused on fundamental geometric forms which formed in Russia in 1915-1916. It was not until later that suprematism received conventional museum preparations...
of Kasimir Malevich. IZO, the Commissariat's artistic bureau, was managed during the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
mainly by Futurists, who published the journal Art of the Commune. Constructivism in Moscow was represented by VKhUTEMAS
VKhUTEMAS
Vkhutemas ) was the Russian state art and technical school founded in 1920 in Moscow, replacing the Moscow Svomas. The workshops were established by a decree from Vladimir Lenin with the intentions, in the words of the Soviet government, "to prepare master artists of the highest qualifications for...
, the school for art and design established in 1919. Gabo later stated that teaching at the school emphasized political and ideological discussion rather than art-making. Despite this, Gabo himself designed a radio transmitter in 1920 (and would submit a design to the Palace of the Soviets competition in 1930).
Constructivism as theory and practice was derived largely from a series of debates at INKhUK (Institute of Artistic Culture) in Moscow, from 1920–22. After deposing its first chairman, Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Kandinsky
Wassily Wassilyevich Kandinsky was an influential Russian painter and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first purely-abstract works. Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow, studying law and economics...
, for his 'mysticism', The First Working Group of Constructivists (including Liubov Popova, Alexander Vesnin
Alexander Vesnin
Alexander Aleksandrovic Vesnin , together with his brothers Leonid Aleksandrovic Vesnin and Viktor Aleksandrovic Vesnin he was a leading light of Constructivist architecture...
, Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova
Varvara Stepanova
Varvara Fyodorovna Stepanova , was a Russian artist associated with the 'Constructivist' movement.She came from peasant origins but was fortunate enough to get an education at Kazan School of Art, Odessa. There she met her lifelong friend and collaborator Alexander Rodchenko...
, and the theorists Alexei Gan, Boris Arvatov and Osip Brik
Osip Brik
Osip Maksimovich Brik , , Russian avant garde writer and literary critic, was one of the most important members of the Russian formalist school, though he also identified himself as one of the Futurists....
) would develop a definition of Constructivism as the combination of faktura
Faktura
The concept of faktura is associated with Russian Constructivism. In the period after the Russian Revolution, new definitions of art had to be found, such as the definition of art objects as "laboratory experiments". "Fakture" was the single most important quality of these art objects, according...
: the particular material properties of an object, and tektonika, its spatial presence. Initially the Constructivists worked on three-dimensional constructions as a means of participating in industry: the OBMOKhU (Society of Young Artists) exhibition showed these three dimensional compositions, by Rodchenko, Stepanova, Karl Ioganson and the Stenberg Brothers. Later the definition would be extended to designs for two-dimensional works such as books or posters, with montage and factography becoming important concepts.
Art in the service of the Revolution
Vitebsk
Vitebsk, also known as Viciebsk or Vitsyebsk , is a city in Belarus, near the border with Russia. The capital of the Vitebsk Oblast, in 2004 it had 342,381 inhabitants, making it the country's fourth largest city...
, where Malevich's UNOVIS
UNOVIS
UNOVIS was a short-lived but influential group of Russian artists, founded and led by Kazimir Malevich at the Vitebsk Art School in 1919....
Group painted propaganda plaques and buildings (the best known being El Lissitzky
El Lissitzky
, better known as El Lissitzky , was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian avant garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works...
's poster Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1919)). Inspired by Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was a Russian and Soviet poet and playwright, among the foremost representatives of early-20th century Russian Futurism.- Early life :...
's declaration 'the streets our brushes, the squares our palettes', artists and designers participated in public life during the Civil War. A striking instance was the proposed festival for the Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...
congress in 1921 by Alexander Vesnin and Liubov Popova, which resembled the constructions of the OBMOKhU exhibition as well as their work for the theatre. There was a great deal of overlap during this period between Constructivism and Proletkult
Proletkult
Proletkult was movement which arose in the Russian revolution and was active from 1917 to 1925 which aspired to provide the foundations for what was intended to be a truly proletarian art devoid of bourgeois influence.The name is a portmanteau of "proletarskaya kultura" , which are better-known as...
, the ideas of which concerning the need to create an entirely new culture struck a chord with the Constructivists. In addition some Constructivists were heavily involved in the 'ROSTA Windows', a Bolshevik public information campaign of around 1920. Some of the most famous of these were by the poet-painter Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was a Russian and Soviet poet and playwright, among the foremost representatives of early-20th century Russian Futurism.- Early life :...
and Vladimir Lebedev.
The constructivists tried to create works that would make the viewer an active viewer of the artwork. In this it had similarities with the Russian Formalists' theory of 'making strange', and accordingly their main theorist Viktor Shklovsky
Viktor Shklovsky
Viktor Borisovich Shklovsky was a Russian and Soviet critic, writer, and pamphleteer.-Life:...
worked closely with the Constructivists, as did other formalists like Osip Brik. These theories were tested in theatre, particularly with the work of Vsevolod Meyerhold
Vsevolod Meyerhold
Vsevolod Emilevich Meyerhold was a great Russian and Soviet theatre director, actor and theatrical producer. His provocative experiments dealing with physical being and symbolism in an unconventional theatre setting made him one of the seminal forces in modern international theatre.-Early...
, who had established what he called 'October in the theatre'. Meyerhold developed a 'biomechanical' acting style, which was influenced both by the circus and by the 'scientific management' theories of Frederick Winslow Taylor
Frederick Winslow Taylor
Frederick Winslow Taylor was an American mechanical engineer who sought to improve industrial efficiency. He is regarded as the father of scientific management and was one of the first management consultants...
. Meanwhile the stage sets by the likes of Vesnin, Popova and Stepanova tested Constructivist spatial ideas in a public form. A more populist version of this was developed by Alexander Tairov
Alexander Tairov
Alexander Tairov was one of the leading innovators of theatrical art, and one of the most enduring theatre directors in Russia, and through the Soviet era.-Childhood:...
, with stage sets by Aleksandra Ekster
Aleksandra Ekster
Aleksandra Aleksandrovna Ekster was a Russian-French painter and designer.-Biography:-Childhood:...
and the Stenberg Brothers. These ideas would influence German directors like Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht
Bertolt Brecht was a German poet, playwright, and theatre director.An influential theatre practitioner of the 20th century, Brecht made equally significant contributions to dramaturgy and theatrical production, the latter particularly through the seismic impact of the tours undertaken by the...
and Erwin Piscator
Erwin Piscator
Erwin Friedrich Maximilian Piscator was a German theatre director and producer and, with Bertolt Brecht, the foremost exponent of epic theatre, a form that emphasizes the socio-political content of drama, rather than its emotional manipulation of the audience or on the production's formal...
, as well as the early Soviet cinema.
Tatlin, 'Construction Art' and Productivism
The canonical work of Constructivism was Vladimir Tatlin's proposal for the Monument to the Third International (1919) which combined a machine aesthetic with dynamic components celebrating technology such as searchlights and projection screens. Gabo publicly criticized Tatlin's design saying Either create functional houses and bridges or create pure art, not both. This had already caused a major controversy in the Moscow group in 1920 when Gabo and Pevsner's Realistic ManifestoRealistic Manifesto
The Realistic Manifesto, was written by sculptor Naum Gabo and cosigned by his brother Antoine Pevsner, and is a key text of Constructivism. The manifesto laid out their theories about artistic expression. The Manifesto focused largely on divorcing art from such conventions as use of lines,...
asserted a spiritual core for the movement. This was opposed to the utilitarian and adaptable version of Constructivism held by Tatlin and Rodchenko. Tatlin's work was immediately hailed by artists in Germany as a revolution in art: a 1920 photograph shows George Grosz
George Grosz
Georg Ehrenfried Groß was a German artist known especially for his savagely caricatural drawings of Berlin life in the 1920s...
and John Heartfield
John Heartfield
John Heartfield is the anglicized name of the German photomontage artist Helmut Herzfeld...
holding a placard saying 'Art is Dead – Long Live Tatlin's Machine Art', while the designs for the tower were published in Bruno Taut
Bruno Taut
Bruno Julius Florian Taut , was a prolific German architect, urban planner and author active during the Weimar period....
's magazine Fruhlicht.
Tatlin's tower started a period of exchange of ideas between Moscow and Berlin, something reinforced by El Lissitzky
El Lissitzky
, better known as El Lissitzky , was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian avant garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works...
and Ilya Ehrenburg
Ilya Ehrenburg
Ilya Grigoryevich Ehrenburg was a Soviet writer, journalist, translator, and cultural figure.Ehrenburg is among the most prolific and notable authors of the Soviet Union; he published around one hundred titles. He became known first and foremost as a novelist and a journalist - in particular, as a...
's Soviet-German magazine Veshch-Gegenstand-Objet which spread the idea of 'Construction art', as did the Constructivist exhibits at the 1922 Russische Ausstellung in Berlin, organised by Lissitzky. A 'Constructivist international' was formed, which met with Dadaists and De Stijl artists in Germany in 1922. Participants in this short-lived international included Lissitzky, Hans Richter
Hans Richter (artist)
Hans Richter was a painter, graphic artist, avant-gardist, film-experimenter and producer. He was born in Berlin into a well-to-do family and died in Minusio, near Locarno, Switzerland.-Germany:...
, and Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the integration of technology and industry into the arts.-Early life:...
. However the idea of 'art' was becoming anathema to the Russian Constructivists: the INKhUK debates of 1920–22 had culminated in the theory of Productivism
Productivism
Productivism is the belief that measurable economic productivity and growth is the purpose of human organization , and that "more production is necessarily good".-Arguments for productivism:...
propounded by Osip Brik and others, which demanded direct participation in industry and the end of easel painting. Tatlin was one of the first to attempt to transfer his talents to industrial production, with his designs for an economical stove, for workers' overalls and for furniture. The Utopian element in Constructivism was maintained by his 'letatlin', a flying machine which he worked on until the 1930s.
Constructivism and consumerism
In 1921, the New Economic PolicyNew Economic Policy
The New Economic Policy was an economic policy proposed by Vladimir Lenin, who called it state capitalism. Allowing some private ventures, the NEP allowed small animal businesses or smoke shops, for instance, to reopen for private profit while the state continued to control banks, foreign trade,...
was established in the Soviet Union, which reintroduced a limited state capitalism in the Soviet economy. Rodchenko, Stepanova, and others made advertising for the co-operatives that were now in competition with commercial businesses. The poet-artist Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was a Russian and Soviet poet and playwright, among the foremost representatives of early-20th century Russian Futurism.- Early life :...
and Rodchenko worked together and called themselves "advertising constructors". Together they designed eye-catching images featuring bright colours, geometric shapes, and bold lettering. The lettering of most of these designs was intended to create a reaction, and function emotionally – most were designed for the state-owned department store Mosselprom in Moscow, for pacifiers, cooking oil, beer and other quotidian products, with Mayakovsky claiming that his 'nowhere else but Mosselprom' verse was one of the best he ever wrote.
Lyubov Popova
Lyubov Sergeyevna Popova was a Russian avant-garde artist , painter and designer. She was also a rarity in the highly male-dominated world of Soviet art.-Early life:...
designed a kind of Constructivist flapper
Flapper
Flapper in the 1920s was a term applied to a "new breed" of young Western women who wore short skirts, bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their disdain for what was then considered acceptable behavior...
dress before her early death in 1924, the plans for which were published in the journal LEF
LEF (journal)
LEF was the journal of the Left Front of the Arts , a widely ranging association of avant-garde writers, photographers, critics and designers in the Soviet Union. It had two runs, one from 1923 to 1925 as LEF, and later from 1927 to 1929 as Novy LEF...
. In these works Constructivists showed a willingness to involve themselves in fashion and the mass market, which they tried to balance with their Communist beliefs.
LEF and Constructivist cinema
The Soviet Constructivists organised themselves in the 1920s into the 'Left Front of the Arts', who produced the influential journal LEFLEF (journal)
LEF was the journal of the Left Front of the Arts , a widely ranging association of avant-garde writers, photographers, critics and designers in the Soviet Union. It had two runs, one from 1923 to 1925 as LEF, and later from 1927 to 1929 as Novy LEF...
, (which had two series, from 1923–5 and from 1927–9 as New LEF). LEF was dedicated to maintaining the avant-garde against the critiques of the incipient Socialist Realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
, and the possibility of a capitalist restoration, with the journal being particularly scathing about the 'NEPmen', the capitalists of the period. For LEF the new medium of cinema was more important than the easel painting and traditional narratives that elements of the Communist Party were trying to revive then. Important Constructivists were very involved with cinema, with Mayakovsky acting in the film The Young Lady and the Hooligan (1919), Rodchenko's designs for the intertitles and animated sequences of Dziga Vertov
Dziga Vertov
David Abelevich Kaufman , better known by his pseudonym Dziga Vertov , was a Soviet pioneer documentary film, newsreel director and cinema theorist...
's Kino Eye (1924), and Aleksandra Ekster
Aleksandra Ekster
Aleksandra Aleksandrovna Ekster was a Russian-French painter and designer.-Biography:-Childhood:...
designed the sets and costumes for the science fiction film Aelita
Aelita
Aelita , also known as Aelita: Queen of Mars, is a silent film directed by Soviet filmmaker Yakov Protazanov made on Mezhrabpom-Rus film studio and released in 1924. It was based on Alexei Tolstoy's novel of the same name...
(1924).
The Productivist theorists Osip Brik and Sergei Tretyakov
Sergei Tretyakov
Sergei Mikhailovich Tretyakov was a Russian constructivist writer, playwright and special correspondent for Pravda. He graduated 1916 from the department of law at Moscow University...
also wrote screenplays and intertitles, for films such as Vsevolod Pudovkin
Vsevolod Pudovkin
Vsevolod Illarionovich Pudovkin was a Russian and Soviet film director, screenwriter and actor who developed influential theories of montage...
's Storm over Asia (1928) or Victor Turin's Turksib (1929). The filmmakers and LEF contributors Dziga Vertov and Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Eisenstein
Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
as well as the documentarist Esfir Shub
Esfir Shub
Esfir Ilyichna Shub , also referred as Esther Shub, was a pioneering Soviet filmmaker.Born in Surazh, Chernigov Governorate, part of Left-bank Ukraine within the Russian Empire, Shub began her career in film as a re-editor for Goskino; she edited several Western films according to Goskino...
also regarded their fast-cut, montage style of filmmaking as Constructivist. The early Eccentrist movies of Grigori Kozintsev
Grigori Kozintsev
Grigori Mikhaylovich Kozintsev was a Jewish Ukrainian, Soviet Russian theatre and film director. He was named People's Artist of the USSR in 1964.He studied in the Imperial Academy of Arts...
and Leonid Trauberg
Leonid Trauberg
Leonid Zakharovich Trauberg was a Jewish Ukrainian Soviet film director and screenwriter. He directed 17 films between 1924 and 1961 and was awarded the Stalin Prize in 1941.-Filmography:* The Adventures of Oktyabrina ...
(The New Babylon
The New Babylon
The New Babylon is a 1929 silent film written and directed by Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg...
, Alone) had similarly avant-garde intentions, as well as a fixation on jazz-age America which was characteristic of the philosophy, with its praise of slapstick-comedy actors like Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin
Sir Charles Spencer "Charlie" Chaplin, KBE was an English comic actor, film director and composer best known for his work during the silent film era. He became the most famous film star in the world before the end of World War I...
or Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
, as well as of Fordist mass production. Like the photomontages and designs of Constructivism, early Soviet cinema concentrated on creating an agitational effect by montage and 'making strange'.
Photography and photomontage
The Constructivists were early developers of the techniques of photomontagePhotomontage
Photomontage is the process and result of making a composite photograph by cutting and joining a number of other photographs. The composite picture was sometimes photographed so that the final image is converted back into a seamless photographic print. A similar method, although one that does not...
. Gustav Klutsis' 'Dynamic City' and 'Lenin and Electrification' (1919–20) are the first examples of this method of montage, which had in common with Dadaism the collaging together of news photographs and painted sections. However Constructivist montages would be less 'destructive' than those of Dadaism. Perhaps the most famous of these montages was Rodchenko's illustrations of the Mayakovsky poem About This.
LEF also helped popularise a distinctive style of photography, involving jagged angles and contrasts and an abstract use of light, which paralleled the work of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy
László Moholy-Nagy was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the integration of technology and industry into the arts.-Early life:...
in Germany: the major practitioners of this included, along with Rodchenko, Boris Ignatovich and Max Penson
Max Penson
Max Penson was a noted Jewish Belarusian photojournalist and photographer of the Soviet Union noted for his photographs of Uzbekistan. His photographs documented the economic transformation of Uzbekistan from a highly traditional feudal society into a modern Soviet republic between 1920 and 1940...
, among others. This also shared many characteristics with the early documentary movement. Meanwhile LEF produced an architectural version, the OSA group directed by Alexander Vesnin
Alexander Vesnin
Alexander Aleksandrovic Vesnin , together with his brothers Leonid Aleksandrovic Vesnin and Viktor Aleksandrovic Vesnin he was a leading light of Constructivist architecture...
and Moisei Ginzburg
Moisei Ginzburg
Moisei Yakovlevich Ginzburg was a Soviet constructivist architect, best known for his 1929 Narkomfin Building in Moscow.-Education:Ginzburg was born in Minsk in a Jewish real estate developer's family. He graduated from Milano Academy and Riga polytechnic institute . During Russian Civil War he...
– for more information see Constructivist architecture
Constructivist architecture
Constructivist architecture was a form of modern architecture that flourished in the Soviet Union in the 1920s and early 1930s. It combined advanced technology and engineering with an avowedly Communist social purpose. Although it was divided into several competing factions, the movement produced...
.
Constructivist graphic design
The book designs of Rodchenko, El Lissitzky and others such as Solomon Telingater and Anton Lavinsky were a major inspiration for the work of radical designers in the West, particularly Jan TschicholdJan Tschichold
Jan Tschichold was a typographer, book designer, teacher and writer.-Life:Tschichold was the son of a provincial signwriter, and he was trained in calligraphy...
. Many Constructivists worked on the design of posters for everything from cinema to political propaganda: the former represented best by the brightly coloured, geometric posters of the Stenberg brothers (Georgii and Vladimir Stenberg
Georgii and Vladimir Stenberg
-Biographies and works:The Stenberg brothers, whose father was a Swede and whose mother was a Russian, were both born in Moscow, Russia but remained Swedish citizens until 1933...
), and the latter by the agitational photomontage work of Gustav Klutsis
Gustav Klutsis
Gustav Klutsis was a pioneering photographer and major member of the Constructivist avant-garde in the early 20th century...
and Valentina Kulagina.
The Constructivists' main early political patron was Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky
Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....
, and it began to be regarded with suspicion after the expulsion of Trotsky and the Left Opposition in 1927-8. The Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
would gradually favour realist art during the course of the 1920s (as early as 1918 Pravda
Pravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....
had complained that government funds were being used to buy works by untried artists). However it was not until about 1934 that the counter-doctrine of Socialist Realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
was instituted in Constructivism's place. Many Constructivists continued to produce avantgarde work in the service of the state, such as Lissitzky, Rodchenko and Stepanova's designs for the magazine USSR In Construction.
Constructivist architecture
Russian Revolution of 1917
The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...
it turned its attentions to the new social demands and industrial tasks required of the new regime. Two distinct threads emerged, the first was encapsulated in Antoine Pevsner
Antoine Pevsner
Antoine Pevsner was a Belarusian and Russian sculptor and the older brother of Alexii Pevsner and Naum Gabo. Both Antoine and Naum are considered pioneers of twentieth-century sculpture.Pevsner was born in Klimavichy, Belarus...
's and Naum Gabo
Naum Gabo
Naum Gabo KBE, born Naum Neemia Pevsner was a prominent Russian sculptor in the Constructivism movement and a pioneer of Kinetic Art.-Early life:...
's Realist manifesto which was concerned with space and rhythm, the second represented a struggle within the Commissariat for Enlightenment between those who argued for pure art and the Productivists
Productivism (art)
Productivism was an art movement founded by a group of Constructivist artists in post-Revolutionary Russia who believed that art should have a practical, socially useful role as a facet of industrial production...
such as Alexander Rodchenko
Alexander Rodchenko
Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko was a Russian artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism and Russian design; he was married to the artist Varvara Stepanova....
, Varvara Stepanova
Varvara Stepanova
Varvara Fyodorovna Stepanova , was a Russian artist associated with the 'Constructivist' movement.She came from peasant origins but was fortunate enough to get an education at Kazan School of Art, Odessa. There she met her lifelong friend and collaborator Alexander Rodchenko...
and Vladimir Tatlin
Vladimir Tatlin
Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin was a Russian and Soviet painter and architect. With Kazimir Malevich he was one of the two most important figures in the Russian avant-garde art movement of the 1920s, and he later became the most important artist in the Constructivist movement...
, a more socially-oriented group who wanted this art to be absorbed in industrial production.
A split occurred in 1922 when Pevsner and Gabo emigrated. The movement then developed along socially utilitarian lines. The productivist majority gained the support of the Proletkult
Proletkult
Proletkult was movement which arose in the Russian revolution and was active from 1917 to 1925 which aspired to provide the foundations for what was intended to be a truly proletarian art devoid of bourgeois influence.The name is a portmanteau of "proletarskaya kultura" , which are better-known as...
and the magazine LEF
LEF (journal)
LEF was the journal of the Left Front of the Arts , a widely ranging association of avant-garde writers, photographers, critics and designers in the Soviet Union. It had two runs, one from 1923 to 1925 as LEF, and later from 1927 to 1929 as Novy LEF...
, and later became the dominant influence of the architectural group O.S.A.
OSA Group
The OSA Group was an architectural association in the Soviet Union, which was active from 1925 to 1930 and considered the first group of constructivist architects...
Legacy
A number of Constructivists would teach or lecture at the BauhausBauhaus
', commonly known simply as Bauhaus, was a school in Germany that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. It operated from 1919 to 1933. At that time the German term stood for "School of Building".The Bauhaus school was founded by...
schools in Germany, and some of the VKhUTEMAS teaching methods were adopted and developed there. Gabo established a version of Constructivism in England during the 1930s and 1940s that was adopted by architects, designers and artists after World War II (see Victor Pasmore
Victor Pasmore
Edwin John Victor Pasmore was a British artist and architect. He pioneered the development of abstract art in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s.-Biography:...
), and John McHale
John McHale (artist)
John McHale was an artist and sociologist. He was a founder member of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and a founder of the Independent Group, which was a British movement that originated Pop Art which grew out of a fascination with American mass culture and post-WWII technologies...
. Joaquín Torres García
Joaquín Torres García
Joaquín Torres García , was a Uruguayan plastic artist and art theorist, also known as the founder of Constructive Universalism...
and Manuel Rendón were instrumental in spreading Constructivism throughout Europe and Latin America. Constructivism had an effect on the modern masters of Latin America such as: Carlos Mérida
Carlos Merida
Carlos Mérida was a Guatemalan artist.-Early life:Mérida was born in Guatemala City to a family from Quetzaltenango, boasting a Maya and Zapotec heritage which was often an inspiration in his art. He began studying music but became hearing-impaired due to illness. He then changed to the visual arts...
, Enrique Tábara
Enrique Tábara
Luis Enrique Tábara is a master Ecuadorian painter and teacher representing a whole Hispanic pictorial and artistic culture....
, Aníbal Villacís
Aníbal Villacís
Aníbal Villacís is a master painter from Ecuador who used raw earthen materials such as clay and natural pigments to paint on walls and doors throughout his city when he could not afford expensive artist materials. As a teenager, Villacís taught himself drawing and composition by studying and...
, Theo Constanté
Theo Constanté
Theo Constanté is a master Latin American painter who is a part of the Abstract Informalist Movement in Ecuador. In 2005, Constanté won the country's most prestigious award for art, literature and culture, the Premio Eugenio Espejo National Award, presented by the President of Ecuador...
, Oswaldo Viteri
Oswaldo Viteri
Oswaldo Viteri is a neo-figurative artist. Viteri gained recognition for his assemblage work but has worked in a wide variety of media including painting, drawing, printmaking and mosaics. He began his education as a student of architecture at the Central University of Quito in 1951...
, Estuardo Maldonado
Estuardo Maldonado
Estuardo Maldonado is a Latin American sculptor and painter inspired by the Constructivist movement. Maldonado is a member of VAN , the group of Informalist painters founded by Enrique Tábara. Other members of VAN included, Aníbal Villacís, Luis Molinari, Hugo Cifuentes and Gilberto Almeida...
, Luis Molinari
Luis Molinari
Luis Molinari was a member of VAN , a group of informal constructivist artists founded by Enrique Tábara....
, Carlos Catasse
Carlos Catasse
Carlos Catasse , born Carlos Tapia Sepúlveda in Santiago, Chile, formed his new last name by combining the first two letters of his first, middle and last names. Catasse is a Chilean painter of international recognition...
, João Batista Vilanova Artigas
João Batista Vilanova Artigas
João Batista Vilanova Artigas was one of the most important Brazilian modernist architects. Born in Curitiba and much-awarded in his lifetime, Artigas is considered one of the most important names in the architectural history of São Paulo, and the founding figure of the Paulista School.- Life...
and Oscar Niemeyer
Oscar Niemeyer
Oscar Ribeiro de Almeida Niemeyer Soares Filho is a Brazilian architect specializing in international modern architecture...
, to name just a few. There have also been disciples in Australia, the painter George Johnson being the best known.
In the 1980s graphic designer Neville Brody
Neville Brody
Neville Brody is an English graphic designer, typographer and art director.Neville Brody is an alumnus of the London College of Printing and Hornsey College of Art, and is known for his work on The Face magazine and Arena magazine , as well as for designing record covers for artists such as...
used styles based on Constructivist posters that initiated a revival of popular interest. Also during the 1980s designer Ian Anderson founded The Designers Republic
The Designers Republic
The Designers Republic was a graphic design studio, founded on 14 July 1986 by Ian Anderson, and based in Sheffield, England. It was known for its anti-establishment aesthetics, while simultaneously embracing brash consumerism and the uniform style of corporate brands, such as Orange and Coca-Cola...
, a successful and influential design company which uses constructivist principles.
So-called Deconstructivist
Deconstructivism
Deconstructivism is a development of postmodern architecture that began in the late 1980s. It is characterized by ideas of fragmentation, an interest in manipulating ideas of a structure's surface or skin, non-rectilinear shapes which serve to distort and dislocate some of the elements of...
architecture was developed by architects Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid
Zaha Hadid, CBE is an Iraqi-British architect.-Life and career:Hadid was born in 1950 in Baghdad, Iraq. She received a degree in mathematics from the American University of Beirut before moving to study at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London.After graduating she worked...
, Rem Koolhaas
Rem Koolhaas
Remment Lucas Koolhaas is a Dutch architect, architectural theorist, urbanist and "Professor in Practice of Architecture and Urban Design" at the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University, USA. Koolhaas studied at the Netherlands Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam, at the Architectural...
and others during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Zaha Hadid by her sketches and drawings of abstract triangles and rectangles evokes the aesthetic of constructivism. Though similar formally, the socialist political connotations of Russian constructivism are deemphasized by Hadid's deconstructivism. Rem Koolhaas' projects revive another aspect of constructivism. The scaffold and crane
Crane (machine)
A crane is a type of machine, generally equipped with a hoist, wire ropes or chains, and sheaves, that can be used both to lift and lower materials and to move them horizontally. It uses one or more simple machines to create mechanical advantage and thus move loads beyond the normal capability of...
-like structures represented by many constructivist architects are used for the finished forms of his designs and buildings.
Cinematic influences include Bulgarian born animator Theodore Ushev
Theodore Ushev
Theodore Ushev is an animator, graphic designer, illustrator and multimedia artist, from Montreal, Quebec, Canada.He was born in Bulgaria and graduated stage decoration, animation, and make-up at Plovdiv's School of Scenic Arts.He obtained a Master degree in Graphic Design from the National Academy...
's 2006 brief film Tower Bawher
Tower Bawher
Tower Bawher is a 2005 constructivist-style abstract animated short by Theodore Ushev, set to the musical composition "Time, Forward!" by Russian composer Georgy Sviridov....
. Inspired by Russian constructivist art, the animated short features visual references to artists of the era including Vertov, Stenberg, Rodchenko, Lissitsky and Popova.
Artists associated with Constructivism
- Ella Bergmann-MichelElla Bergmann-MichelElla Bergmann-Michel was a German abstract artist. An early student of constructivist art in Germany, her contributions to modern abstract art are often forgotten in American art culture. Bergmann-Michel’s style was very specialized and unique, especially considering the restrictive time in...
– (1896–1971) - Max BillMax BillMax Bill was a Swiss architect, artist, painter, typeface designer, industrial designer and graphic designer.Bill was born in Winterthur...
, painter, sculptor and designer (1908–1994) - Ilya BolotowskyIlya BolotowskyIlya Bolotowsky was a leading early 20th-century painter in abstract styles in New York City. His work, a search for philosophical order through visual expression, embraced cubism and geometric abstraction and was much influenced by Dutch painter Piet Mondrian.Born to Jewish parents in St...
, painter and sculptor (1907–1981) - Norman CarlbergNorman CarlbergNorman Carlberg is an American sculptor and printmaker. He is noted as an exemplar of the modular constructivist style....
, sculptor (1928 – ) - Carlos CatasseCarlos CatasseCarlos Catasse , born Carlos Tapia Sepúlveda in Santiago, Chile, formed his new last name by combining the first two letters of his first, middle and last names. Catasse is a Chilean painter of international recognition...
– (1944–2010) - Srečko KosovelSrecko KosovelSrečko Kosovel was a Slovene expressionist poet who evolved towards avant-garde forms. Since the 1960s, Kosovel has become a poetic icon, in the league of the most prestigious Slovene literates like France Prešeren and Ivan Cankar. Together with Edvard Kocbek, he is considered as the most...
– (1904–1926), Slovenian poet - Theo ConstantéTheo ConstantéTheo Constanté is a master Latin American painter who is a part of the Abstract Informalist Movement in Ecuador. In 2005, Constanté won the country's most prestigious award for art, literature and culture, the Premio Eugenio Espejo National Award, presented by the President of Ecuador...
– (1934–Present) - Avgust ČernigojAvgust CernigojAvgust Černigoj, also known in Italian as Augusto Cernigoi was a Italian painter, known for his avant-garde experiments in Constructivism....
– (1898–1985) - Burgoyne A. Diller – (1906–1965)
- Sergei EisensteinSergei EisensteinSergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein , né Eizenshtein, was a pioneering Soviet Russian film director and film theorist, often considered to be the "Father of Montage"...
– filmmaker (1898–1948) - John ErnestJohn ErnestJohn Ernest was an American-born constructivist abstract artist. He was born in Philadelphia, USA, in 1922. After living and working in Sweden and Paris from 1946 to 1951, he moved to London England where he lived and worked from 1951...
– (1922–1994) - Günter FruhtrunkGünter FruhtrunkGünter Fruhtrunk was a German painter and printmaker, who is classified as a geometric abstract artist and whose work relates to Op Art....
– (1923–1982) - Naum GaboNaum GaboNaum Gabo KBE, born Naum Neemia Pevsner was a prominent Russian sculptor in the Constructivism movement and a pioneer of Kinetic Art.-Early life:...
– (1890–1977) - Moisei GinzburgMoisei GinzburgMoisei Yakovlevich Ginzburg was a Soviet constructivist architect, best known for his 1929 Narkomfin Building in Moscow.-Education:Ginzburg was born in Minsk in a Jewish real estate developer's family. He graduated from Milano Academy and Riga polytechnic institute . During Russian Civil War he...
, architect (1892–1946) - Hermann GlöcknerHermann GlöcknerHermann Glöckner was a German painter and sculptor. He was an important representative of constructivism.Glöckner was born in Dresden-Cotta. He attended the vocational school in Leipzig in 1903 and worked as a designer for textiles...
, painter and sculptor (1889–1987) - Don Gummer – sculptor (1946–)
- Erwin HauerErwin HauerErwin Hauer is an Austrian-born American sculptor who studied first at Vienna's Academy of Applied Arts and later under Josef Albers at Yale. Hauer was an early proponent of Modular Constructivism and an associate of Norman Carlberg...
– (1926– ) - Lajos KassákLajos KassákLajos Kassák was a Hungarian poet, novelist, painter, essayist, editor, theoretician of the avant-garde and occasional translator, was the father of many modernisms....
– poet, novelist, painter (1887–1967) - Gustav KlutsisGustav KlutsisGustav Klutsis was a pioneering photographer and major member of the Constructivist avant-garde in the early 20th century...
– (1895–1938) - El LissitzkyEl Lissitzky, better known as El Lissitzky , was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian avant garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works...
– (1890–1941) - Ivan LeonidovIvan LeonidovIvan Ilich Léonidov was a Russian constructivist architect, urban planner, painter and teacher.-Early life:...
– architect (1902–1959) - Verena LoewensbergVerena LoewensbergVerena Loewensberg was a Swiss painter.-References:*This article was initially translated from the German Wikipedia....
– painter (1912–1986) - Marcelle CahnMarcelle CahnMarcelle Cahn was a French painter and one of the members of Abstraction-Création. She was born in a Jewish family of Strasbourg, Alsace and died at 86, in Neuilly-sur-Seine. The French contemporary artist Richard Conte made an homage to Marcelle Cahn in 1995 at the Nicole Ferry Art Gallery...
– painter (1895–1981) - Richard Paul LohseRichard Paul LohseRichard Paul Lohse was a Swiss painter and graphic artist and one of the main representatives of the concrete and constructive art....
– painter and designer (1902–1988) - Peter LowePeter LowePeter Lowe is a British Constructivism artist. He was born in London at Victoria Park, Hackney. He studied at Goldsmiths' College 1954–60 where he was taught by Mary and Kenneth Martin. Lowe's work is rational, abstract and geometric. In 1960 he constructed and exhibited his first geometric...
– (1938–) - Louis LozowickLouis LozowickLouis Lozowick was an American painter and a printmaker. He was born in Russian Empire , came to United States in 1906, and died in New Jersey in 1973...
– (1892–1973) - Camille GraeserCamille GraeserCamille Graeser was a Swiss painter.-References:*This article was initially translated from the German Wikipedia....
– (1882–1980) - Berthold LubetkinBerthold LubetkinBerthold Romanovich Lubetkin was a Russian émigré architect who pioneered modernist design in Britain in the 1930s. His work includes the Highpoint housing complex, London Zoo penguin pool, Finsbury Health Centre and Spa Green Estate.-Early years:Berthold Lubetkin was born in Tiflis into a Jewish...
– architect (1901–1990) - Thilo MaatschThilo MaatschThilo Friedrich Maatsch was a German artist and an exponent of abstract art, constructivism and concrete art.- Life :...
– (1900–1983) - Estuardo MaldonadoEstuardo MaldonadoEstuardo Maldonado is a Latin American sculptor and painter inspired by the Constructivist movement. Maldonado is a member of VAN , the group of Informalist painters founded by Enrique Tábara. Other members of VAN included, Aníbal Villacís, Luis Molinari, Hugo Cifuentes and Gilberto Almeida...
– (1930–Present)
- Kenneth MartinKenneth MartinKenneth Martin was an English painter and sculptor who along with his wife Mary Martin and Victor Pasmore was a leading figure in the revival of Constructivism in Britain and America in the 1940s....
– (1905–1984) - Mary MartinMary Martin (Artist)Mary Adela Martin was a British sculptor best known for her work with her husband Kenneth Martin....
– (1907–1969) - Vsevolod MeyerholdVsevolod MeyerholdVsevolod Emilevich Meyerhold was a great Russian and Soviet theatre director, actor and theatrical producer. His provocative experiments dealing with physical being and symbolism in an unconventional theatre setting made him one of the seminal forces in modern international theatre.-Early...
– theatre director (1874–1940) - Vladimir MayakovskyVladimir MayakovskyVladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was a Russian and Soviet poet and playwright, among the foremost representatives of early-20th century Russian Futurism.- Early life :...
– poet, painter, designer and playwright (1893–1930) - Konstantin MelnikovKonstantin MelnikovKonstantin Stepanovich Melnikov was a Russian architect and painter. His architectural work, compressed into a single decade , placed Melnikov on the front end of 1920s avant-garde architecture...
– architect (1890–1974) - Vadim MellerVadym MellerVadym Meller or Vadim Meller, was a Ukrainian-Russian Soviet painter, avant-garde Cubist and Constructivist artist, theatrical designer, book illustrator, and architect...
– (1884–1962) - John McHaleJohn McHale (artist)John McHale was an artist and sociologist. He was a founder member of the Institute of Contemporary Arts, and a founder of the Independent Group, which was a British movement that originated Pop Art which grew out of a fascination with American mass culture and post-WWII technologies...
– (1922–1978) - Josef Müller-BrockmannJosef Müller-BrockmannJosef Müller-Brockmann, , was a Swiss graphic designer and teacher. He studied architecture, design and history of art at both the University and Kunstgewerbeschule in Zurich. In 1936 he opened his Zurich studio specialising in graphic design, exhibition design and photography. From 1951 he...
– graphic designer (1914–1996) - Tomoyoshi MurayamaTomoyoshi Murayamawas a Japanese artist, playwright and drama producer active during the Showa period of Japan.-Early life:Murayama was born in the Kanda Suehiro district of Tokyo. His father, who was a medic in the Imperial Japanese Navy, died when he was nine years old. His mother became a fervent Christian after...
– (1901–1977) - Victor PasmoreVictor PasmoreEdwin John Victor Pasmore was a British artist and architect. He pioneered the development of abstract art in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s.-Biography:...
– (1908–1998) - Antoine PevsnerAntoine PevsnerAntoine Pevsner was a Belarusian and Russian sculptor and the older brother of Alexii Pevsner and Naum Gabo. Both Antoine and Naum are considered pioneers of twentieth-century sculpture.Pevsner was born in Klimavichy, Belarus...
– (1886–1962) - Lyubov PopovaLyubov PopovaLyubov Sergeyevna Popova was a Russian avant-garde artist , painter and designer. She was also a rarity in the highly male-dominated world of Soviet art.-Early life:...
– (1889–1924) - Aleksandr Rodchenko – (1891–1956)
- Oskar SchlemmerOskar SchlemmerOskar Schlemmer was a German painter, sculptor, designer and choreographer associated with the Bauhaus school. In 1923 he was hired as Master of Form at the Bauhaus theatre workshop, after working some time at the workshop of sculpture...
– (1888–1943) - Kurt SchwittersKurt SchwittersKurt Hermann Eduard Karl Julius Schwitters was a German painter who was born in Hanover, Germany. Schwitters worked in several genres and media, including Dada, Constructivism, Surrealism, poetry, sound, painting, sculpture, graphic design, typography and what came to be known as...
– (1887–1948) - Manuel Rendón SeminarioManuel Rendón SeminarioManuel Rendón Seminario was a master Latin American painter credited with bringing the Constructivist Movement to Ecuador and Latin America together with Joaquín Torres García who brought the Constructivist Movement to his home country of Uruguay...
– (1894–1982) - Vladimir ShukhovVladimir ShukhovVladimir Grigoryevich Shukhov , was a Russian engineer-polymath, scientist and architect renowned for his pioneering works on new methods of analysis for structural engineering that led to breakthroughs in industrial design of world's first hyperboloid structures, lattice shell structures, tensile...
– architect (1853–1939) - Anton StankowskiAnton StankowskiAnton Stankowski was a German graphic designer, photographer and painter. He developed an original Theory of Design and pioneered Constructive Graphic Art. Typical Stankowski designs attempt to illustrate processes or behaviours rather than objects...
– painter and designer (1906–1998) - Georgii and Vladimir StenbergGeorgii and Vladimir Stenberg-Biographies and works:The Stenberg brothers, whose father was a Swede and whose mother was a Russian, were both born in Moscow, Russia but remained Swedish citizens until 1933...
– poster designers and sculptors (1900–1933, 1899–1982) - Varvara StepanovaVarvara StepanovaVarvara Fyodorovna Stepanova , was a Russian artist associated with the 'Constructivist' movement.She came from peasant origins but was fortunate enough to get an education at Kazan School of Art, Odessa. There she met her lifelong friend and collaborator Alexander Rodchenko...
– (1894–1958) - Enrique TábaraEnrique TábaraLuis Enrique Tábara is a master Ecuadorian painter and teacher representing a whole Hispanic pictorial and artistic culture....
– (1930–Present) - Vladimir TatlinVladimir TatlinVladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin was a Russian and Soviet painter and architect. With Kazimir Malevich he was one of the two most important figures in the Russian avant-garde art movement of the 1920s, and he later became the most important artist in the Constructivist movement...
– (1885–1953) - Joaquín Torres GarcíaJoaquín Torres GarcíaJoaquín Torres García , was a Uruguayan plastic artist and art theorist, also known as the founder of Constructive Universalism...
– (1874–1949) - Vasiliy YermilovVasiliy YermilovVasyl Yermylov was a Ukrainian painter, avant-garde artist and designer. His genres included cubism, constructivism, and neo-primitivism.-Biography:* Vasyl Yermylov was born 22 March 1894 in the city of Kharkiv, Ukraine....
– (1894–1967) - Thomas RingThomas RingThomas Ring may refer to:*Tommy Ring, a Scottish footballer *Thomas Ring Petersen, a Danish singer, winner of Danish X Factor...
– (1892–1983) - Dziga VertovDziga VertovDavid Abelevich Kaufman , better known by his pseudonym Dziga Vertov , was a Soviet pioneer documentary film, newsreel director and cinema theorist...
– filmmaker (1896–1954) - Alexander VesninAlexander VesninAlexander Aleksandrovic Vesnin , together with his brothers Leonid Aleksandrovic Vesnin and Viktor Aleksandrovic Vesnin he was a leading light of Constructivist architecture...
– architect, painter and designer (1883–1957) - Aníbal VillacísAníbal VillacísAníbal Villacís is a master painter from Ecuador who used raw earthen materials such as clay and natural pigments to paint on walls and doors throughout his city when he could not afford expensive artist materials. As a teenager, Villacís taught himself drawing and composition by studying and...
– (1927–Present) - Oswaldo ViteriOswaldo ViteriOswaldo Viteri is a neo-figurative artist. Viteri gained recognition for his assemblage work but has worked in a wide variety of media including painting, drawing, printmaking and mosaics. He began his education as a student of architecture at the Central University of Quito in 1951...
– (1931–Present) - Hans Dieter ZingraffZingraffHans Dieter Zingraff is a German artist in constructivism. He was born in Karlsruhe, Germany in 1947 as the son of an electrical engineer. Zingraff showed an early interest in the arts, in particular in trompe-l'œil, the optical illusion technique.-In Spain:In 1972 he moved to Dénia, Spain...
– (1947–Present)
Resources
- Russian Constructivist Posters, edited by Elena Barkhatova. ISBN 2-08-013527-9.
- Heller, Steven, and Seymour Chwast. Graphic Style from Victorian to Digital. New ed. New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2001. 53–57.
- Lodder, Christina. Russian Constructivism. Yale University Press; Reprint edition. 1985. ISBN 0-300-03406-7
- Rickey, George. Constructivism: Origins and Evolution. George Braziller; Revised edition. 1995. ISBN 0-8076-1381-9
- Alan Fowler. Constructivist Art in Britain 1913–2005. University of Southampton. 2006. PhD Thesis.
- Russian Constructivism. MoMA.org
- International Constructivism. MoMA.org