El Lissitzky
(Russian, 1890–1941)
Biography
El Lissitzky was an avant-garde Russian artist and major figure in both Suprematism and Constructivism. Lissitzky’s politically fueled poster designs, photographs, and paintings melded formal abstraction with typography, as seen in his Proun series. “The artist constructs a new symbol with his brush. This symbol is not a recognizable form of anything which is already finished, already made, already existing in the world,” he once mused. “It is a symbol of a new world, which is being built upon and which exists by way of people.” Born Lazar Markovich Lisitskii on November 23, 1890 to a Jewish family in the small village of Pochinok, Russia. Much of his childhood was spent in Vitebsk, where he studied art from a young age under Yehuda Pen, who also taught Marc Chagall. In 1909, Lissitzky moved to Germany to study architecture at the Technische Universität in Darmstadt. At the outbreak of World War I, he and other Russian emigres were forced back to Russia. After the 1917 Russian Revolution, Lissitzky became involved with the newly formed Soviet government group Inkhuk (Institute for Artistic Culture). His work for the institute included designing exhibitions for Constructivist shows and typographies for books by Vladimir Mayakovsky. Lissitzky died on December 30, 1941 in Moscow, Russia. Today, his works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Tate Gallery in London, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, among others.
El Lissitzky Artworks
El Lissitzky
Raboche Krestyanskaya Armiya [The Red Army..., 1934
Sale Date: October 19, 2017
Auction Closed
El Lissitzky
Wendingen (= Umschlag, 4. Serie (1921), Nr...., 1921
Sale Date: September 29, 2017
Auction Closed
El Lissitzky
Proun IV - Blatt 4 der I. Kestnermappe, Proun, 1923
Sale Date: June 10, 2017
Auction Closed
El Lissitzky
Wendingen, Band 4, Heft No. 11. Sonderheft Frank
Sale Date: June 15, 2017
Auction Closed
Attributed to El Lissitzky
Composition (Possibly for a Book Cover)
Sale Date: May 20, 2017
Auction Closed
El Lissitzky
Belarus. Design for a double page in the..., 1937
Sale Date: May 31, 2017
Auction Closed
El Lissitzky
Ukraine. Design for a double page in the..., 1937
Sale Date: May 31, 2017
Auction Closed
El Lissitzky
Dziga Vertov with Jen Lissitzky (2..., 1930–1939
Sale Date: November 30, 2016
Auction Closed
El Lissitzky
Globetrotter in der Zeit, from..., 1920–1921
Sale Date: November 1, 2016
Auction Closed
El Lissitzky
Posten, from Figurinenmappe. Die plastische..., 1923
Sale Date: November 1, 2016
Auction Closed
El Lissitzky
Birth Announcement of the Artist's Son, 1930
Sale Date: October 27, 2016
Auction Closed