Rajesh Punjabi 031812304 GR616 - Influences El Lissitzky In a small Jewish town Pochinok, on the western side of the former

Russian Empire, El Lissitzky was born in 1890. He spent much of his childhood in the neighboring town of Vitebsk where he was fortunate enough to encounter Yehuda Pen, a local Jewish artist. Pen has established his own School of Drawing and Painting in Vitebsk where he taught many artists including Marc Chagall. Pen noticed Lissitzkys natural affinity for art and took it upon himself to nurture Lissitzkys creative abilities. At the age of fifteen, Lissitzky was sharing what he had learned by teaching other young artists in the school. Lissitzky was denied admission to the St. Petersburg Art Academy in 1909 due to anti-Semitic Laws, which regulated admission quotas of Jewish students, under the regime of Nicholas II. Instead he traveled to Germany to study architectural engineering at the Technische Hochschule (University of Technology), in the city of Darmstadt. His program included courses in free drawing where he would draft illustrations of landscapes of places he had seen from memory such as Reminiscence of Ravenna (Figure 9.1). At the start of World War I in 1914 he returned to Russia with many of his colleagues including Chagall, and Wassily Kandinsky. The artist, proud of his culture, began to produce Jewish National art. Chagall had been appointed Commissar of Arts in Vitebsk and started an art academy in which he invited Lissitzky to be and instructor of architecture and graphics. At the academy Lissitzsky met Kazimir Melevich, another instructor, who had been developing an abstract form of art using geometric shapes called, Suprematism. El Lissitzsky, inspired by the work of Melevich, was enthralled by this new style. The two went co-founded the Suprematist group UNOVIS. Lissitzkys work often combined architectural elements with strong political symbolism unlike the work of Melevich. One of his most famous works was the propagandic Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge in 1919 (Figure 9.2). Lissitzsky wanted to identify himself through his own interpretation of Suprematism. He accomplished this by developing a variation which he called Proun. The exact meaning behind the name is unknown but the new style emphasized his background in architecture, displaying tall buildings and bridges. (Figure 9.3) The Suprematist movement began to divide into two distinct groups. The first, including Melevich, followed Utopian ideals in the movement while the second combined those ideals with industrialization. Lissitzky remained independent during the divide continuing to refine his own style. As Suprematism began to fade out and Lissitzky returned to Germany in after being named an official cultural representative of Russia. Here he would would work as a graphic designer, producing covers and spreads for magazines and journals. Also during this time, Lissitzsky would produce propaganda posters for the Soviet Union including his (Figure 9.5). His next endeavors involved a new art movement called Contructivism which utilized city skylines. His work in this area was defined by structures that were known as, horizontal skyscrapers (Figure 9.4) These were buildings that were aligned on the horizontal plane that were meant to be created and opposed the growing appearance vertical skyscrapers. Lissitzky returned to Moscow in 1928 where he spent the remainder of his life teaching, writing, working, and designing. In the 1930s he continued to produce architecturally inspired designs while also experimenting with new medias such as typography, photography, and photomontage. Lissitzky was diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1923 and fell victim to the disease dying in his home outside of Moscow on December 21st, 1941.

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[Pg 2, Top Left] Reminiscence of Ravenna. 1919. El Lissitzsky. [Pg 2, Top Right] Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge. 1920. El Lissitzsky. [Pg 2, Bottom Left] Proun 1 A, Bridge I. 1919. El Lissitzsky. [Pg 2, Bottom Right] Iron in clouds, for Strastnoy Boulevard. 1925. El Lissitzsky. [Pg 3] All for the front! All for Victory! El Lissitzsky.