113 works online
Introduction
Lazar Markovich Lissitzky (Russian: Ла́зарь Ма́ркович Лиси́цкий, listen ; November 23 [O.S. November 11] 1890 – December 30, 1941), known as El Lissitzky (Russian: Эль Лиси́цкий, Yiddish: על ליסיצקי‎), was a Russian artist, designer, photographer, typographer, polemicist and architect. He was an important figure of the Russian avant-garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works for the Soviet Union. His work greatly influenced the Bauhaus and constructivist movements, and he experimented with production techniques and stylistic devices that would go on to dominate 20th-century graphic design.Lissitzky's entire career was laced with the belief that the artist could be an agent for change, later summarized with his edict, "das zielbewußte Schaffen" (goal-oriented creation). Lissitzky, of Lithuanian Jewish оrigin, began his career illustrating Yiddish children's books in an effort to promote Jewish culture in Russia. When only 15 he started teaching, a duty he would maintain for most of his life. Over the years, he taught in a variety of positions, schools, and artistic media, spreading and exchanging ideas. He took this ethic with him when he worked with Malevich in heading the suprematist art group UNOVIS, when he developed a variant suprematist series of his own, Proun, and further still in 1921, when he took up a job as the Russian cultural ambassador to Weimar Germany, working with and influencing important figures of the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements during his stay. In his remaining years he brought significant innovation and change to typography, exhibition design, photomontage, and book design, producing critically respected works and winning international acclaim for his exhibition design. This continued until his deathbed, where in 1941 he produced one of his last works – a Soviet propaganda poster rallying the people to construct more tanks for the fight against Nazi Germany. In 2014, the heirs of the artist, in collaboration with Van Abbemuseum and leading worldwide scholars on the subject, the Lissitzky Foundation was established in order to preserve the artist's legacy and to prepare a catalogue raisonné of the artist's oeuvre.
Wikidata
Q152233
View or edit the full Wikipedia entry
Information from Wikipedia, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License
Introduction
From 1909-1914, Lissitzky attended the Technical High School in Darmstadt, Germany, after which he returned to Moscow. In 1917, he qualified as an architect in that city and two years later, he taught at the Fine Arts Academy in Witebsk, later moving to the Fine Arts Academy in Moscow in 1921. In 1922, Lissitzky worked out of Berlin where he made contact with Bauhaus artists. Here, he first experimented with photography, creating posters and book covers. From 1922 to 1924 Lissitzky worked in Hanover, Germany and began producing photograms, becoming the first artist to use photograms for publicity purposes. Along with Man Ray and László Moholy-Nagy, Lissitsky one of those who refined the use of the photogram. Lissitzky moved to Switzerland in 1924 to receive treatment for tuberculosis. One year later he returned to Moscow and was named a professor at the School of Interior Architecture and continued to produce photographic experiments and collages. From 1932 to 1940, Lissitzky worked for the magazine "USSR in Construction". He worked in a freelance capacity for the magazine which worked to promote the idea of Soviet industrialization.
Nationalities
Russian, Soviet
Gender
Male
Roles
Artist, Architect, Designer, Teacher, Illustrator, Painter, Photographer, Sculptor, Theorist
Names
El Lissitzky, El Lazar Lissitzky, El' Lisickij, Eliezer Lisitski, Lazar Markovich Lisi︡tskiĭ, Lazar Markovich Lisitskii, Lazar Markovich Lisitsky, El Lissickij, E. M. Lissitsky, El Lissitsky
Ulan
500015156
View the full Getty record
Information from Getty’s Union List of Artist Names ® (ULAN), made available under the ODC Attribution License

If you would like to reproduce an image of a work of art in MoMA's collection, or an image of a MoMA publication or archival material (including installation views, checklists, and press releases), please contact Art Resource (publication in North America) or Scala Archives (publication in all other geographic locations).

All requests to license audio or video footage produced by MoMA should be addressed to Scala Archives at firenze@scalarchives.com. Motion picture film stills or motion picture footage from films in MoMA's Film Collection cannot be licensed by MoMA/Scala. For licensing motion picture film footage it is advised to apply directly to the copyright holders. For access to motion picture film stills please contact the Film Study Center. More information is also available about the film collection and the Circulating Film and Video Library.

If you would like to reproduce text from a MoMA publication or moma.org, please email text_permissions@moma.org. If you would like to publish text from MoMA's archival materials, please fill out this permission form and send to archives@moma.org.

This record is a work in progress. If you have additional information or spotted an error, please send feedback to digital@moma.org.