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El Lissitzky

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Artist

The Resume

    (November 23, 1890-December 30, 1941)
    Born in Pochinok, Russia
    Birth name was Lazar Markovich Lissitzky
    Painter, graphic designer, photographer, architect, and typeographer
    Designed the Soviet pavilions at many international art exhibitions
    Co-founded the Supremacist movement with Kazimir Malevich
    Best known work was 'Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge' (1920)

Why he might be annoying:

    He designed propaganda posters for the Soviet government.
    After Supremacism, he started a new art movement dubbed 'Proun,' which he described as the transfer point from painting to architecture.'
    Almost all of his architectural designs, such as a series of 'horizontal skyscrapers' or a new headquarters for Pravda, were never built.
    The only one of his designs to be built -- a print shop in Moscow -- was badly damaged in a fire (2008), a year after an architectural foundation had recommended that the building be added to the register of historic places, a request that the city government had not gotten around to acting on.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He began teaching art at age fifteen.
    Although he easily passed the entrance exams, he was rejected by the art academy in St. Petersburg because the school had already filled its quota for Jewish students (1909).
    He began his career illustrating Yiddish children's books to promote Jewish culture in Russia.
    He was an innovator in the fields of photomontage, book design, and exhibition design.
    As a Soviet 'cultural ambassador' to Weimar Germany, he influenced the Bauhaus and De Stijl schools of art.

Credit: C. Fishel


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