Works by El Lissitzky 1915. El Lissitzky paintings

(1890-1941) worked in several fields of art. He was an architect, artist, book graphic artist, designer, theater decorator, photomontage artist, and exhibition designer. He made his contribution to each of these areas, entering the practice and history of the development of art in the first half of the 20th century. Lissitzky graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the Higher Technical School in Darmstadt (1909-1914) and the Riga Polytechnic (1915-1918). Lissitzky’s versatility as an artist and his desire to work in several areas of art is not just a feature of his talent, but to a large extent the need of the era when interaction various types art developed the features of modern aesthetic culture. Lissitzky was one of those who stood at the origins of new architecture and contributed with his creative and theoretical works significant influence on the formal and aesthetic searches of innovative architects.

Lazar Markovich (Mordukhovich) Lisitsky was born into the family of artisan-entrepreneur Mordukh Zalmanovich Lisitsky and housewife Sarah Leibovna Lisitskaya on November 10 (22), 1890 in the village. Pochinok Smolensk province. He graduated from a real school in Smolensk (1909). He studied at the Faculty of Architecture of the Higher Polytechnic School in Darmstadt and at the Riga Polytechnic Institute, which was evacuated to Moscow during the First World War (1915-1916). He worked in the architectural bureau of Velikovsky and Klein.

Since 1916, he participated in the work of the Jewish Society for the Encouragement of Arts, including in collective exhibitions of the society in 1917 and 1918 in Moscow and in 1920 in Kyiv. At the same time, in 1917, he began illustrating books published in Yiddish, including modern Jewish authors and works for children. Using traditional Jewish folk symbols, he created a stamp for the Kyiv publishing house “Yidisher Folks-Farlag” (Jewish folk publishing house), with which he signed a contract on April 22, 1919 to illustrate 11 books for children. During the same period (1916), Lissitzky took part in ethnographic trips to a number of cities and towns in the Belarusian Dnieper region and Lithuania with the aim of identifying and recording monuments of Jewish antiquity; The result of this trip was the reproductions of the paintings of the Mogilev synagogue at Shkolishche, published in Berlin in 1923, and the accompanying article in Yiddish “Memories of the Mogilev Synagogue”, the magazine “Milgroim” - the only theoretical work of the artist dedicated to Jewish decorative art.

In 1918 in Kyiv, Lissitzky became one of the founders of the Kultur League (Yiddish: League of Culture), an avant-garde artistic and literary association that aimed to create a new Jewish national art. In 1919, at the invitation of Marc Chagall, he moved to Vitebsk, where he taught at Narodny art school (1919-1920).

In 1917-19, Lissitzky devoted himself to illustrating works of modern Jewish literature and especially children's poetry in Yiddish, becoming one of the founders of the avant-garde style in Jewish book illustration. In contrast to Chagall, who gravitated towards traditional Jewish art, from 1920 Lissitzky, under the influence of Malevich, turned to Suprematism. It is in this vein that later book illustrations of the early 1920s were made, for example for the books “Chiefs Map” (1922), poems by Mani Leib (1918-1922), Rabbi (1922) and others. It was to Lissitzky’s Berlin period that his last active work in Jewish history dates back to book graphics(1922-1923). After returning to Soviet Union Lissitzky no longer turned to book graphics, including Jewish ones.

Since 1920 he performed under the artistic name “El Lissitzky”. He taught at the Moscow Vkhutemas (1921) and Vkhutein (since 1926); in 1920 he joined Inkhuk.

The formation of a new architecture in the first years after October revolution occurred in close interaction between architects and figures of the “left” visual arts. During these years, a complex process of crystallization of a new style took place, which occurred most intensively at the intersection of fine art and architecture.

Being an architect by training, Lissitzky was one of the first to understand the significance of the artistic search for “leftist” painting for the development of modern architecture. Working at the intersection of architecture and fine arts, he did a lot to transfer into the new architecture those formal and aesthetic findings that helped the formation of modern architecture. artistic culture. One of the active figures of the Vitebsk UNOVIS headed by K. Malevich, Lisitsky and in 1919 - 1921 created his own PROUNs (projects for approving a new one) - axonometric images of different shapes in equilibrium geometric bodies, sometimes resting on a solid foundation, sometimes as if floating in outer space.

In 1921-1925 he lived in Germany and Switzerland; joined the Dutch group "Style".

In his formal and aesthetic searches of those years, Lissitzky consciously relied on architecture, considering PROUNs as “transfer stations on the way from painting to architecture.” PROUNs represented one of the links in the process of passing the baton from left-wing painting to new architecture. These were original models of new architecture, architectonic experiments in the field of shape-formation, searches for new geometric-spatial representations, certain compositional “blanks” for future volumetric-spatial constructions. It is no coincidence that he gives some of his PROUNs such names as “city”, “bridge”, etc. Later, Lissitzky used some of his PROUNs when developing specific architectural projects (water station, horizontal skyscrapers, residential building, exhibition interiors, etc. .).

In the early years Soviet power Lissitzky also acts as a theorist, substantiating his understanding of the process of interaction between leftist movements in fine art and architecture. However, Lissitzky's role in this process of interaction was not limited to his creative and theoretical works. He accepts Active participation in such complex creative associations, like UNOVIS, INKHUK and Vkhutemas. He was associated with the Bauhaus, with members of the Dutch group "De Stijl", with French artists and architects.

Lissitzky did a lot to promote the achievements of Soviet architecture abroad. In 1921-1925 he lived in Germany and was treated for tuberculosis in Switzerland. During these years, he established close relationships with many progressive Western artists, gave reports and articles on problems of architecture and art, and took an active part in the creation of new magazines (“Thing” - in Berlin, “ABC” - in Zurich).

Lissitzky's close attention to artistic problems formative development led him to a rapprochement with the rationalists and to joining ASNOVA. He was one of the editors and main authors of the issue “Izvestia ASNOVA” (1926), which was planned to be turned into periodical. However, Lissitzky’s creative credo and theoretical views do not give reason to consider him an orthodox rationalist. Although in a number of his works he criticizes the inherent desire of constructivism (and functionalism) to emphasize the functional and constructive expediency of the new architectural form, yet much in Lissitzky’s views brought him closer to constructivism. It can be said that Lissitzky’s creative credo turned out to be largely united by many features of rationalism and constructivism - these main innovative trends in Soviet architecture of the 20s, which largely complemented each other in matters of form-building. It is no coincidence that Lissitzky had close creative contact with both the theorist of rationalism N. Ladovsky and the theorist of constructivism M. Ginzburg. The rapprochement with the constructivists was facilitated by Lisitsky’s work as a professor at the woodworking and metalworking faculty of Vkhutemas, where, under his leadership, modern built-in furniture, transformable furniture, sectional furniture and individual elements of standard furniture were developed, many of which were intended for economical living cells.

A significant place in Lissitzky’s work in the first years of Soviet power was occupied by works related to propaganda art - the poster “Beat the Whites with a Red Wedge” (1919), “Lenin Tribune” (1920-1924), etc. In 1923, he completed sketches for the unrealized production of the opera "Victory over the Sun".

Lisitsky made a certain contribution to the development of the urban planning problem of vertical zoning of city development. The work of Soviet architects in this area in those years differed significantly from the projects of foreign architects. It was proposed to build buildings raised on supports not over pedestrian paths, but over transport highways. Of the three main elements of vertical zoning - pedestrian, transport and development - preference was given to the pedestrian, changing whose position in the spatial planning structure of the city was considered inappropriate. The main reserves of vertical zoning were seen in the use of space for construction above transport highways. In the project of “horizontal skyscrapers” developed by Lissitzky for Moscow (1923-1925), it was proposed to erect (directly above the roadway of the city) eight similar buildings for central institutions in the form of horizontally elongated two-pieces at the intersections of the boulevard ring (Ring A) with the main radial transport highways. three-story buildings raised above the ground on three vertical supports housing elevators and stairs, with one support connecting the building directly to the metro station.

Lissitzky takes an active part in architectural competitions: the House of Textiles in Moscow (1925), residential complexes in Ivanovo-Voznesensk (1926), House of Industry in Moscow (1930), Pravda plant. He designed a water station and stadium in Moscow (1925), a rural club (1934), and took an active part in the planning and design of the Park of Culture and Leisure named after. Gorky in Moscow, creates a project (not implemented) for the main pavilion of the Agricultural Exhibition in Moscow (1938), etc.

In 1930-1932, according to the design of El Lissitsky, the printing house of the Ogonyok magazine was built (house number 17 on 1st Samotechny Lane). Lissitzky's printing house is distinguished by an amazing combination of huge square and small round windows. The building's plan is similar to Lissitzky's sketch of a “horizontal skyscraper”.

Closely related to development modern interior and Lissitzky’s work in the field of exhibition design, to which he contributed whole line fundamental innovations: design for the Soviet pavilion at the exhibition of decorative arts in Paris (1925), the All-Union Printing Exhibition in Moscow (1927), Soviet pavilions at the international press exhibition in Cologne (1928), at the international fur exhibition in Leipzig (1930) and at the international exhibition "Hygiene" in Dresden (1930).

Lissitzky's theoretical and architectural works cannot be considered separately from other aspects of his creative activity. It is the complexity artistic creativity Lissitzky allowed him to play a significant role in the difficult and controversial period of the early 20s, when in the process of interaction various arts new architecture and design were born.

Lissitzky made a significant contribution to the development of new methods of graphic design of books (the book “Mayakovsky for Voice” - published in 1923, etc.), in the field of posters and photomontage. One of the best images of this area is the poster for the “Russian Exhibition” in Zurich (1929), where a cyclopean image of two heads, fused into a single whole, rises above the generalized architectural structures. Lissitzky performed several works in the spirit of Suprematism propaganda posters, for example, “Beat the whites with a red wedge!”; developed transformable and built-in furniture in 1928-1929. He created new principles of exhibition exposition, perceiving it as whole organism. An excellent example of this is the All-Union Printing Exhibition in Moscow (1927).

The fate of Lissitzky the theorist was such that most of his works have been published abroad on German(in the 20s in articles in the magazines “Merz”, “ABC”, “G”, etc., in the book “Russia. Reconstruction of architecture in the Soviet Union” published in 1930 in Vienna) or remained in its time not published (some works were published in 1967 in the book “El Lissitzky” published in Dresden). Lissitzky’s theoretical statements taken together give an idea of ​​him as one of the original representatives of Soviet architecture during the period of its formation.

Source: “Masters of Soviet architecture about architecture”, volume II, “Art”, Moscow, 1975. Compilation and notes: S.O. Khan-Magomedov

Lazar Markovich (Mordukhovich) Lissitzky (*November 22, 1890 – December 30, 1941) was a Soviet artist and architect, also commonly known as “El Lissitzky.”

El Lissitzky is one of the outstanding representatives of the Russian and Jewish avant-garde. Together with Kazimir Malevich he developed the foundations of Suprematism.

In 1918 in Kyiv, Lissitzky became one of the founders of the Kultur-League (Yiddish: League of Culture), an avant-garde artistic and literary association that aimed to create a new Jewish national art. In 1919, at the invitation of Marc Chagall, he moved to Vitebsk, where he taught at the People's Art School (1919-1920).

In 1917-1919, Lissitzky devoted himself to illustrating works of modern Jewish literature and especially children's poetry in Yiddish, becoming one of the founders of the avant-garde style in Jewish book illustration. In contrast to Chagall, who was inclined towards traditional Jewish art, from 1920 Lissitzky, under the influence of Malevich, turned to Suprematism.

Lissitzky died of tuberculosis in December 1941. His last job there was a poster “Give us more tanks.” He was buried at the Donskoye Cemetery in Moscow, along with his father Mark Solomonovich, his brother Reuben and his wife Lelya.

Izvestia ASNOVA, 1920s

In 1926, under the editorship of L. Lisitsky and N. Ladovsky, the first issue of “Izvestia ASNOVA (Association of New Architects)” was published, which included Ladovsky’s article “Fundamentals of the construction of the theory of architecture” and the most significant projects of the association members from 1923-1925.

Kunstisms, 1920s, Books

"Kunstisms". The book is a montage about new art published by El Lissitzky together with Hans Arp in 1925.

Cover of Journalist magazine, No. 1, 1929

There is a metro!

Page from the magazine “USSR on Construction”, No. 8, 1935. By El Lissitzky.

The first ski jumping hill in Moscow. Sparrow Hills

Poster for the exhibition of achievements of the USSR in Germany, 1929

Poster for Kazimir Malevich’s lecture in Orenburg

In July 1920, Kazimir Malevich and El Lissitzky, leaders of UNOVIS, the movement of promoters of new art, came to Orenburg. Malevich gives a lecture “State Society Criticism and New artist(Innovator)". After which, the whole August, together with Lissitzky (the author of the banner sketches new Russia) resting in a kumiss clinic near Orenburg.

Cover of the book “Notes of a Poet”

Cover of the book “ZOO or Letters not about love”

Poster of the USSR at the international fur exhibition, 1930

El Lissitzky - Topography of typography. 1920s

Theses formulated by El Lissitzky about typography and visual perception.

1. Words printed on a sheet of paper are perceived by the eyes, not by hearing.
2. With ordinary words concepts are represented, and with the help of letters concepts can be expressed.
3. Economy of perception - optics instead of phonetics.
4. The design of a book body using typesetting material, according to the laws of typographic mechanics, must correspond to the forces of compression and tension of the text.
5. The design of a book body using clichés implements new optics. Supernatural reality improves vision.
6. Continuous sequence of pages - bioscopic book.
7. A new book requires new writers. Inkwell and goose feathers dead.
8. A printed sheet conquers space and time. The printed page and the infinity of the book themselves must be overcome.

Artist

Proun 1A, Most I Suggest a name

Abstraction in pink tones

Beat the whites with a red wedge, 1920

Here are two squares, 1920

Geometric abstraction

Teachers of the People's Art School

Teachers of the People's Art School. Vitebsk, July 26, 1919. Seated from left to right: El Lissitzky, Vera Ermolaeva, Marc Chagall, David Yakerson, Yudel Pan, Nina Kogan, Alexander Romm. The school clerk is standing there.

The first Soviet designer and artist El Lissitzky went down in history Russian art as a co-founder of Suprematism, book illustrator and photographer. He participated in the publication of such magazines as “Metz”, “Brum”, “Thing”, taught at the Moscow Vkhutemas and Vkhutein, and was an active member of the Dutch art group"De Stijl", which united prominent representatives of avant-garde and neo-plasticism. On the background artistic achievements Lazar Markovich (El is the pseudonym the artist took after he became a supporter of Suprematism), his unrealized projects in the field of architecture and urban planning theory become unique. These projects are of particular value today, when the key to successful development of the city is urbanization and properly developed urban policy.

Lissitzky's architectural activity was concentrated around urban planning problems and proper zoning of the urban environment. A certified architect (Lisitsky is a graduate of the Technical High School in Darmstadt), Lazar Markovich from the very beginning of his activity followed the path of radical reform of the existing laws of architecture. In his diary he wrote: “We were brought up in the era of inventions. ...We have become conscripts of the era of a new beginning human history..." It was architecture that was to become the means by which Lissitzky was going to lead humanity to new level existence. How? Definitely, without the help of engineers, builders, complex drawings and mathematical laws. Lissitzky's answer is simple: through art.

Having become interested in Suprematism quite early, Lissitzky remained faithful to its principles all his life: he was the author of propaganda posters (“Beat the whites with a red wedge!”) and a decorator theatrical productions, made in the style of Suprematism, and even published a book for children, “The Suprematist Tale of Two Squares,” in which central place It is not the text that occupies, but geometric shapes - squares, rectangles and circles, painted in the primary colors of the spectrum. The artist viewed Suprematism as a socially significant component public life. By experimenting with Suprematist compositions, Lissitzky sought to translate the principles of Suprematism from artistic language to practical language.

Soon the architect managed to create a universal Suprematist unit, which formed the basis of his urban utopian project. This basis was “proun” - a project for approving something new. The author defined proun as “a transfer station from painting to architecture.” Depicting the proun on paper, stretching, turning and distorting the figure, Lissitzky never considered it as geometric figure on surface. For him it became a proun new model, a revolutionary form in urban planning.

Subsequently, based on the prouns, Lissitzky developed a project for an entire utopian city: “We set ourselves the task of a city - a single creative work, the center of collective effort, the mast of the radio sending an explosion of creative effort into the world: in it we will overcome the constraining foundation of the earth and rise above it... this dynamic architecture will create new theater life..."

Perhaps if you look closely at one of the geometric compositions Lissitzky, you will be able to see this city soaring in the sky, where the houses grow not in height, but horizontally in length. The horizontal skyscrapers stand on three frame foundations: one of them went deep underground and served as a metro stop, while the others stopped trams.

Lissitzky's revolutionary ideas were not destined to come true. The project of horizontal skyscrapers was rejected as too abstract and not taking into account the modern architectural problems of Moscow. Today, the memory of Lissitzky the architect is immortalized in only one building built according to his design - the printing house of the Ogonyok magazine.

Few, even the most powerful names of the Russian avant-garde, have been awarded such an unprecedented scale. Such a scale seems to compensate for the rare exhibitions of El Lissitzky (1890-1941) in Russia, and even more so in the USSR, the last of which, dedicated to his 100th anniversary, was held in 1990. Artist, architect, graphic artist, designer, constructor, art theorist, Lissitzky was one of the titans of the Russian avant-garde. His ability to work in many areas at once reveals him as a classic type of Renaissance man. His most fantastic ideas coincided with the spirit of the times, which required making a fairy tale come true. The curator of the exhibition, one of the leading experts on the Russian avant-garde, Tatyana Goryacheva, placed the main emphasis on Lissitzky’s incarnation as an artist-inventor, fearlessly constructing new reality. A horizontal skyscraper, a constructivist book, folding furniture and, finally, a brilliant proun - discovering new forms in architecture, painting, graphics, printing, Lissitsky, according to Goryacheva, felt like “the hero of a utopian novel.” He was not just an architect, a book or furniture designer, but one of the main designers of a new life, building the world according to the laws of the avant-garde. However, most of Lissitzky’s projects remained on paper, part of a beautiful utopia.

El Lissitzky. Flag standard of the Soviet pavilion of the Press exhibition in Cologne. View from the Rhine. 1928. Photo: State Tretyakov Gallery

The exhibition at the Jewish Museum is devoted mainly to the early, pre-avant-garde period in the artist’s work. Lissitzky spent his childhood in Smolensk and Vitebsk, where he studied painting with Yehuda (Yuri) Pan, from whose studio Marc Chagall also came. Lisitsky graduated from three educational institutions - in Smolensk, Darmstadt and Moscow, receiving the specialty of an architectural engineer (his architectural landscapes have been preserved from this time).

El Lissitzky. "Proun 43." Circa 1922. Photo: State Tretyakov Gallery

However, the period of its formation is associated to a greater extent with illustration. Several years before the revolution, Lissitzky delved into the study of Jewish culture, traveling around the Belarusian Dnieper region and Lithuania in search of monuments of Jewish antiquity. The murals of the Mogilev synagogue he sketched would later be published in the German-Jewish magazine Milgroim. Moreover, he was not just an archivist, but also the creator of modern Jewish culture. He stands at the base public organization The Kultur League, whose goal was to create new Jewish art, illustrates books in Yiddish by contemporary authors. A new style is born from the synthesis of Jewish popular print and the language of modernism, which gradually comes to the fore. Book illustrations, posters, photo collages, photomontages, photograms, documentary photographs, as well as a number of Lissitzky’s works from the State Tretyakov Gallery and the Russian state archive literature and art in the exhibition give an idea of ​​the strength of the impulse that the artist received from national culture.

El Lissitzky. "Proun of rotation." Around 1920. Photo: State Tretyakov Gallery

The main layer of Lissitzky’s works will be shown in the halls of the Tretyakov Gallery. Prouns, architectural and theater projects, design, posters and photography - everything he did. They also promise a display of paintings and graphic works from the collections of Western museums: the Stedelijk Museum, the Pompidou Center, Art Museum Basel, Art gallery Moritzburg in Halle, Germany, the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven and even from National Museum arts of Azerbaijan. IN Russian museums Lissitzky is represented primarily by graphics - now it will be possible to compare them with paintings.

El Lissitzky. “Skyscraper on the square at the Nikitsky Gate. General form above". Photo: State Tretyakov Gallery

Lissitzky's painting settled in Western museum collections primarily because he dealt with it during his long business trip to Berlin, where he became an intermediary between Soviet constructivists and Western designers.

And yet, the main turn in Lissitzky’s art took place in Vitebsk, even before his voyage abroad. For a couple of years, in 1919-1920, he returned to the city of his childhood. It was Vitebsk that became the place where the inventor of the new Jewish culture, Lazar Lissitzky, turned into the avant-garde artist El Lissitzky. Lissitzky will further develop the brilliant ideas that arose during his work at Unovis (“Adopters of New Art”) long years. Working side by side with another titan of the avant-garde, Kazimir Malevich, he came to invent a completely new universal artistic form- “prouna” (“project for approval of a new one”). By building a bridge between abstraction and reality, he gave objectivity to Malevich’s Suprematism. Proun is distinguished from Malevich's metaphysical abstraction by its projectiveness: not to depict, but to create reality - this was the goal of Lissitzky, who “shared” heaven and earth with Malevich. Later, the proun became the basis for the invention of the horizontal skyscraper. If Lissitzky's dreams had come true, today there would be seven horizontal skyscrapers on the main squares of the Boulevard Ring in Moscow, which would house ministries.

El Lissitzky. "Proun 84." 1923-1924. Photo: State Tretyakov Gallery

It was in Vitebsk, following Malevich, that Lissitzky began working on the scenery for the opera “Victory over the Sun,” radically placing the stage in the center auditorium and by inventing “figurines”—dynamic mechanisms that can replace actors. This is also where the initial idea for “Lenin’s Tribune” was born together with Ilya Chashnik. In Vitebsk he also made his poster masterpiece “Beat the Whites with a Red Wedge.” And here the foundations of the new are laid graphic design: in “Two Squares” Lissitzky is the first to begin to imagine the book as an architectural object.
The final point in the exhibition is the work of the 1930s, when Lissitzky was busy exhibition design international exhibitions and the magazine “USSR at Construction”. In the 1930s, brilliant projectism was replaced by harsh practical work, making obvious the change in the vector of avant-garde utopia. However, later posters and design materials retain traces of the discoveries of the 1920s.

State Tretyakov Gallery
Jewish Museum and Tolerance Center
El Lissitzky
November 16, 2017 - February 18, 2018

El Lissitzky is an iconic figure of the Russian avant-garde, architect, artist, designer, the first Russian graphic designer, master of photomontage, engineer. A supporter of Suprematism actively worked to transition this trend into the field of architecture, and his projects were several decades ahead of their time.

Architect against his will

Lazar Lisitsky was born on November 22, 1890 in the small village of Pochinok, Smolensk region, into a Jewish family. His father was an artisan entrepreneur, his mother a housewife. The family moved to Smolensk, where Lazar graduated from the Alexander Real School. Later they moved to Vitebsk, where the boy became interested in painting and began taking drawing lessons from local artist Yudelya Pan. By the way, he was also Marc Chagall’s teacher. In 1909, Lissitzky tried to enter the Art Academy in St. Petersburg, but at that time Jews were very rarely admitted to higher education institutions. Therefore, Lazar entered the Higher Polytechnic School in Darmstadt, Germany, from which he successfully graduated, receiving a diploma in architectural engineering. During his studies, he not only traveled a lot, but also managed to earn extra money as a mason. In 1914, Lissitzky defended his diploma, and when the First World War began World War, was forced to return to Russia in a roundabout way - through Switzerland, Italy and the Balkans. In 1915, he entered the Riga Polytechnic Institute, which was evacuated to Moscow during the war, and in 1918 received the title of architectural engineer. While still studying, Lissitsky began working as an assistant in Velikovsky’s architectural bureau.

Introduction to Suprematism

In 1916, Lissitzky began to take up painting in earnest. He participated in the work of the Jewish Society for the Encouragement of Arts, in exhibitions in 1917, 1918 and 1920. In 1917, Lissitzky began illustrating books published in Yiddish, both for children and for adults, by contemporary Jewish authors. Actively working with graphics, he developed the emblem of the Kyiv publishing house Yiddisher Folks-Farlag. In 1919, he signed a contract with this publishing house to illustrate 11 books.

El Lissitzky. Hit the whites with a red wedge. 1920. Van Abbemuseum. Eindhoven, Netherlands

El Lissitzky. Geometric abstraction. Image: artchive.ru

El Lissitzky. Central Park of Culture and Leisure Vorobyovy Gory. Image: artchive.ru

In the same 1919, Marc Chagall, with whom Lissitzky had developed friendly relations, invited him to Vitebsk to teach graphics and architecture at the recently opened People's Art School. Yudel Pen and Kazimir Malevich came there, again at the invitation of Chagall. Malevich was a generator of innovative ideas in painting, and his concepts and enthusiasm were received coolly at the school. Chagall and his “tangle of like-minded people” were supporters of figurative painting, while the avant-garde artist Malevich at that time had already founded his own direction - Suprematism. Malevich's works delighted Lissitzky. At that time he was engaged in classical Jewish painting under the great influence of Chagall, therefore, despite his interest in Suprematism, Lissitzky was both in teaching and in own creativity tried to stick to classical forms. Gradually educational institution small town turned into a battlefield between two directions of painting. Malevich propagated his ideas in a rather aggressive manner, and Chagall left the school.

“Prouns” and Suprematism in architecture

Lissitzky found himself between two fires and ultimately made his choice in favor of Suprematism, but introduced some innovations into it. First of all, he was an architect, not an artist, so he developed the concept of prouns - “projects for the approval of the new,” which assumed the release of planar Suprematism into volume. According to him in my own words, it was supposed to be “an interchange station on the path from painting to architecture.” For Malevich, his creative concepts were a purely philosophical phenomenon, for Lissitzky - a practical one. His goal was to develop a city of the future, as functional as possible. Experimenting with the layout of buildings, he came up with the design for the famous horizontal skyscraper. Such a solution would allow us to get the maximum usable area with minimal supports - an ideal option for the city center, where there is little space for development. The project was never translated into reality - like most of Lissitzky’s architectural plans. The only building built according to his drawings is the printing house of the Ogonyok magazine, erected in Moscow in 1932.

El Lissitzky. Proun "City" (the phenomenon of the square). 1921. Image: famous.totalarch.com

El Lissitzky. Proun. 1924. Image: famous.totalarch.com

El Lissitzky. Proun 19 D. 1922. Image: famous.totalarch.com

In 1920, Lazar took the pseudonym El Lissitzky. He taught, gave lectures at VKHUTEMAS, VKHUTEIN, took part in an expedition to the cities of Lithuania and the Dniester region, based on his impressions he published scientific work about Jewish decorative arts: “Memories of the Mogilev synagogue.” In 1923, Lissitzky published reproductions of the painting of a synagogue in Mogilev and created sketches for the design of the opera “Victory over the Sun,” which, however, was never staged. A talented graphic artist, Lissitzky created several famous propaganda posters: in 1920, “Beat the Whites with a Red Wedge,” and many years later, during the Great Patriotic War, Patriotic War- the most famous - “Everything for the front, everything for victory.”

Since 1921, Lissitzky lived in Germany and Switzerland, in Holland, where he joined the Dutch association of artists “Style”, who worked in neo-plasticism.

Working at the intersection of graphics, architecture and engineering, Lissitzky developed radically new principles of exhibition, presenting the exhibition space as a single whole. In 1927, he designed the All-Union Printing Exhibition in Moscow according to new principles. In 1928–1929, he developed projects for a functional modern apartment with built-in transformable furniture.

El Lissitzky. Cover of the book “For the Voice” by Vladimir Mayakovsky. 1923. State. ed. RSFSR. Berlin

El Lissitzky. International magazine on contemporary art "Thing". 1922. Berlin. Image: famous.totalarch.com

El Lissitzky. Poster of the first Soviet exhibition in Switzerland. 1929. Image: famous.totalarch.com

Lissitzky was engaged in photography, one of his hobbies was photomontage: he created photo collages for the design of exhibitions, for example, the “Russian Exhibition” in Zurich, Switzerland.

Family and destiny

In 1927, El Lissitzky married Sophie Küppers. Her first husband was an art critic and director of the Center for Contemporary Art in Hannover, she was actively interested in contemporary art: Her collection of paintings included both Wassily Kandinsky and Marc Chagall. In 1922, Sophie was left a widow with two small children. At an exhibition in Berlin that same year, she first became acquainted with Lissitzky’s works, a little later they met personally and correspondence began. In 1927, Sophie moved to Moscow and married Lissitzky. The couple got and common child- son Boris.

In 1923, Lissitzky was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He did not know that he was seriously ill until he suffered from pneumonia. A few years later, his lung was removed, and until his death, the architect lived, giving great amount time and effort for treatment, while still working. Lazar Lissitzky died in 1941 at the age of 51. His family found themselves in a terrible situation during the war. One of Sophie's sons, Kurt, was in Germany at that time and was arrested as a Red and the stepson of a Jew. The second, Hans, was arrested in Moscow as a German. Kurt managed to survive the Nazi camps, but Hans died in Stalin's camps in the Urals. Sophie herself and Boris were deported to Novosibirsk in 1944. She managed to take with her documents, letters, drawings and paintings by El Lissitzky, and in the 1960s Sophie handed over the archive Tretyakov Gallery and published a book about her husband.