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(Isayevich)

(b Vinnitsa, Ukraine, Dec 22, 1889; d Leningrad [now St Petersburg], Dec 12, 1970).

Russian painter, graphic artist, sculptor and designer of Ukrainian birth. He studied painting at the School of Art in Odessa (1901–7) under Kiriak Kostandi (1852–1921), at the same time attending classes in sculpture. In 1908–9 he made a series of pointillist paintings. He visited Vienna and Munich in 1910 before going to Paris, where he worked at Vasil’yeva’s Free Russian Academy until 1912, producing paintings on Jewish themes and studying Cubism. In 1912 he went to St Petersburg, where he painted a number of Cubist portraits, for example of the poet Anna Akhmatova (1914; St Petersburg, Rus. Mus.). His Cubist work makes much use of faceting and transparent planes. From 1918 to 1921 he taught at the Department of Visual Arts (IZO) of Narkompros in Petrograd, but he was criticized for his attempts to identify Futurism with the art of the proletariat. Al’tman became well known as the designer of post-Revolutionary mass parades and monuments, for example the celebration of the first anniversary of the Revolution on ...

[Klutsis, Gustav (Gustavovich)]

(b Rŭjiena, Latvia, Jan 4, 1895; d Siberia, 1944).

Latvian painter, sculptor, graphic artist, designer and teacher, active in Russia. He was an important exponent of Russian Constructivism. He studied in Riga and Petrograd (now St Petersburg), but in the 1917 October Revolution joined the Latvian Rifle Regiment to defend the Bolshevik government; his sketches of Lenin and his fellow soldiers show Cubist influence. In 1918 he designed posters and decorations for the May Day celebrations and he entered the Free Art Studios (Svomas) in Moscow, where he studied with Malevich and Antoine Pevsner. Dynamic City (1919; Athens, George Costakis priv. col., see Rudenstine, no. 339) illustrates his adoption of the Suprematist style. In 1920 Klucis exhibited with Pevsner and Naum Gabo on Tver’skoy Boulevard in Moscow; in the same year Klucis joined the Communist Party. In 1920–21 he started experimenting with materials, making constructions from wood and paper that combined the geometry of Suprematism with a more Constructivist concern with actual volumes in space. In ...

Latvian, 20th century, male.

Born 4 January 1895 , in Rŭjiena, Latvia; died 26 February 1938 , in Moscow

Painter, collage artist, photomontage artist, poster artist, lithographer, sculptor.

Constructivism, Vhutemas, Productivism, Suprematism.

Unovis, October.

Gustav Klucis studied at the City Art School in Riga (1913-1915), then at the school of design under the aegis of the Imperial Society for the Fostering of Art (1915-1917) in Petrograd (now St Petersburg). He completed his training at Vasily Meshkov’s school of design and painting, Il’ya Mashkov’s studio in the State Free Art Studio (Svoma) in Moscow, and the higher artistic and technical workshops (Vkhutemas) under the direction of Kazimir Malevich and Antoine Pevsner. An associate member of the INKhUK (Institute of Artistic Culture) productivist group in Moscow from 1921 to 1925, he taught courses at the Vkhutemas from 1924 to 1930. He was a founder member of the October group in 1928....

Ukrainian, 20th century, male.

Born 1870 or 1873, in Bolchie or Bolchye Gorki; died 1942, in Moscow.

Painter (including gouache), watercolourist, sculptor.

Suprematism.

Brought up in Warsaw, where he studied at the school of design for the promotion of the arts, Ivan Klyun left Poland and moved to Moscow in 1910 where he attended the studio of Ilya Mashkov, V. Fisher and F. Rerberg. In 1913, by now in St Petersburg, he joined a futurist group, the ...

(Vasil’yevich)

(b Bol’shiye Gorky, province of Vladimir, 1873; d Moscow, 1943).

Russian painter and sculptor. He studied in Kiev and Warsaw in the 1890s and then in Moscow, and initially painted in a Symbolist style (e.g. Portrait of the Artist’s Wife (Consumption), 1910; Athens, George Costakis priv. col., see Rudenstine, p. 141). In 1907 he met Malevich and later joined the Union of Youth group, contributing to their final exhibition in St Petersburg during the winter of 1913–14. At this time Klyun began producing sculptures and reliefs using stylistic devices from Cubism and Futurism. The most dynamic and abstract of these is Rapidly Passing Landscape (1915; Moscow, Tret’yakov Gal.), constructed from painted wood, wire, metal and porcelain. Klyun was in close contact with Malevich from 1913 and signed Malevich’s Suprematist manifesto of December 1915. Klyun later produced Suprematist works, including a series of small paintings (untitled) depicting single geometric forms in various colours on white grounds (c. 1917; Athens, George Costakis priv. col., see Rudenstine, p. 147). In ...

Latvian, 20th century, female.

Active in Poland.

Born 1898, in Riga; died 1951, in Lódz.

Sculptor.

Constructivism, Suprematism.

Groups: Unovis, Blok, Praesens, R.A. (Revolutionary Artists), Abstraction-Création.

Katarzyna Kobro studied sculpture in Moscow between 1917 and 1920, first at the school of painting, sculpture and design in Moscow then at the state free art workshop (Svomas). She met the painter Strzeminsky in Moscow and married him in ...

(b Moscow, Jan 26, 1898; d Łódź, Feb 21, 1951).

Polish sculptor of Latvian origin. She studied at the School of Painting, Sculpture and Drawing, the second Free Workshops (Svomas), Moscow, 1917–20. In 1920 she moved to Smolensk, and in 1921 she married Władysław Strzemiński. In 1920–22 she was associated with the Vitebsk-based group Unovis. She lived in Poland from 1924, and she belonged to all the Polish Constructivist groups in succession: Block, Praesens, a.r., as well as to the international group Abstraction–Création. All works cited in this article are in the Museum of Art, Łódź. Her earliest pieces are Cubist nude studies. Hanging Constructions (1921–2) are Suprematist kinetic forms suspended in space, called ‘aerostats’, in which tensions in the materials provide movement and vibration. Abstract Sculptures (c. 1924) are multi-element vertical compositions, flat forms with flowing contours and composed in space defined by the cylinder of the base. The series of Spatial Compositions and ...

Cuban, 20th century, female.

Born 1911, in Pinar del Rio.

Painter, collage artist, sculptor.

Lolo was a follower of the geometrically-inclined abstract art movement deriving from the work of Sophie Taüber-Arp and the Suprematism of Malevich.

After becoming heavily involved in trade union activities, Lolo was made cultural representative of the Republic of Cuba in Europe. In this position, in ...

[Alexander] (Mikhaylovich)

(b St Petersburg, Nov 23, 1891; d Moscow, Dec 3, 1956).

Russian painter, sculptor, designer and photographer. He was a central exponent of Russian Constructivism, owing much to the pre-Revolutionary work of Kazimir Malevich and Vladimir Tatlin, and he was closely involved in the cultural debates and experiments that followed the Revolution of 1917. In 1921 he denounced, on ideological grounds, easel painting and fine art, and he became an exponent of Productivism (see Constructivism, §1) in many fields, including poster design, furniture, photography and film. He resumed painting in his later years. His work was characterized by the systematic way in which from 1916 he sought to reject the conventional roles of self-expression, personal handling of the medium and tasteful or aesthetic predilections. His early nihilism and condemnation of the concept of art make it problematic even to refer to Rodchenko as an artist: in this respect his development was comparable to that of Dada, although it also had roots in the anarchic activities of Russian Futurist groups....

Russian, 20th century, male.

Born 1903, in Vitebsk (Belarus); died 1941, on the Leningrad battle front.

Painter, graphic artist, designer, sculptor.

Suprematism.

Unovis group.

Lev Yudin studied under Kazimir Malevich at Vitebsk higher school of art (1919-1922). Deeply influenced by Malevich, he was a member of the Unovis group from ...