Aleksandr Rodchenko. Novyi LEF. Zhurnal levogo fronta iskusstv, 6

Aleksandr Rodchenko

Novyi LEF. Zhurnal levogo fronta iskusstv, 6

1927

Lithograph and letterpress

Not on view

Many of the foundations of The New Typography were derived from the social and artistic experimentation of Constructivist designers in the Soviet Union. The Cyrillic alphabet lent itself to simplification and abstraction, and in these designs for LEF—one of the most famous and widely distributed of the Soviet avant-garde magazines—Rodchenko combined elemental typography with strong color and emblematic photographs or photomontage. Tschichold's extensive collection of Soviet Russian materials such as these magazines made him suspect to Nazi authorities in Munich and led to his arrest in 1933.

Gallery label from

The New Typography, December 23, 2009–July 26, 2010.

Medium Lithograph and letterpress
Dimensions 9 x 6 1/16" (22.8 x 15.4 cm)
Publisher Gosizdat (State Publishing House of the RSFSR) [Госиздат, Госуда́рственное изда́тельство РСФСР]
Credit Jan Tschichold Collection, Gift of Philip Johnson
Object number 820.1999
Department Architecture & Design

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Aleksandr Rodchenko

Aleksandr Rodchenko

Russian, 1891–1956 246 works online

When The Museum of Modern Art’s first director, Alfred H. Barr, Jr. , met Aleksandr Rodchenko on his trip to Moscow in 1927—one of the first times an Anglophone art historian had visited the Soviet Union in the years since the Russian Revolution—he wrote, “Rodchenko showed us an appalling variety of things—Suprematist paintings (preceded by the earliest geometrical things I’ve seen, 1915, done with compass)—woodcuts, linoleum cuts, posters, book designs, photographs, kino sets, etc….

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