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INVENTORY OF THE EL LISSITZKY LETTERS AND PHOTOGRAPHS,
1911-1941
950076
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Title: El Lissitzky letters and photographs
Dates: 1911-1941
Collection number: 950076
Creator:
Lissitzky, El, 1890-1941
Extent:
1 lin. ft.
(3
boxes)
Repository:
Getty Research Institute
Research Library
Special Collections and Visual Resources
1200 Getty Center Drive, Suite 1100
Los Angeles, CA 90049-1688
Abstract: The El Lissitzky letters and photographs collection consists of 106 letters sent, most
by Lissitzky to his wife, Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers, along with his
personal notes on art and aesthetics, a few official and personal documents, and
approximately 165 documentary photographs and printed
reproductions of his art and architectural designs, and in particular, his exhibition designs.
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Language: Collection material in German
Open for use by qualified researchers.
Contact
Library Rights and Reproductions
El Lissitzky letters and photographs,
1911-1941, Getty Research Institute, Research Library, Accession no.
950076.
Acquired in 1995.
Carl Wuellner processed the collection and wrote the finding aid in December, 1995-March, 1996.
El Lissitzky photographs, 1910-1934. Getty Research Institute, Research Library, Accession no. 2000.R.11.
El Lissitzky (1890-1941) began his artistic education in 1909, when he traveled to Germany to study architecture at the Technische
Hochschule in Darmstadt. Lissitzky returned to Russia in 1914, continuing his studies in Moscow where he attended the Riga
Polytechnical Institute. After the Revolution, Lissitzky became very active in Jewish cultural activities, creating a series
of inventive illustrations for books with Jewish themes.
These formed some of his earliest experiments in typography, a key area of
artistic activity that would occupy him for the remainder of his life.
He was invited by Marc Chagall in 1919 to teach architecture and
graphics at the Vitebsk Art School. There Lissitzky was influenced by
faculty-member Kazimir Malevich's method of Suprematism, a form of
non-representational painting in which colored planes hover in space over a
neutral ground. Inspired by Malevich's invention, Lissitzky introduced a new
form of abstract composition that he called "Proun" (an acronym for "Project
for the Affirmation of the New".) The Prouns consisted of sharply delineated
arrangements of colored geometric forms, intended to suggest architectural
structures floating in space. Lissitzky conceived of the Prouns as existing
half-way between painting and architecture, an idea which epitomized the
aesthetic of Russian Constructivism. Widely reproduced in books and journals,
Lissitzky's Prouns influenced the work of many leading European modernists.
Lissitzky became a member of Moscow's INKhUK (Institute of Artistic
Culture) and joined the faculty of VKhUTEMAS (The Higher State Artistic and
Technical Workshops) in 1921. Later that year he returned to Germany. There he
became an important representative of the Russian avant-garde to the West
through friendships he made with artists such as Làszlò
Moholy-Nagy, who transmitted Lissitzky's ideas on art to western Europe and the
United States through his teaching at the Bauhaus, and Kurt Schwitters, with
whom Lissitzky collaborated on a number of projects. Lissitzky's role as a
cultural ambassador of Russian modernism was enhanced by his activities in
publishing and writing on art. During the early 1920's he worked with writer
Ilia Erenburg on a tri-lingual journal on modern art subjects, titled
Vesch/Objet/Gegenstand. Other literary collaborations
included an article and the design layout for a volume of the journal Merz,
known as the
Nasci-Heft, which he co-published with Kurt Schwitters in
1924, and a collaboration with Hans Arp on
Kunstismen, a book chronicling the "isms" of art. He also
translated Kazimir Malevich's writings on art in hopes of making the ideas
underlying Russian Suprematism available to a wider European audience.
Lissitzky was closely associated later in his life with the editorial board of
the propaganda magazine begun by Maxim Gorky,
USSR im Bau, contributing layout designs and photomontages
for a number of commemorative issues devoted to the Stalinist Constitution,
Soviet Georgia, and the Red Army. During these years in Germany he also gained
recognition as a notable figure in experimental photography, developing
techniques of graphic representation which would characterize of much of his
later work in publishing and exhibition design. Furthermore, it was during his
stay in Hannover in 1922-1923 that he met Sophie.
Lissitzky was diagnosed with tuberculosis late in 1923, for which he
sought treatment at a sanatorium in Switzerland. He paid for his treatment and
accommodations there by executing advertising commissions for the firm
Günther Wagner, the makers of Pelikan-brand ink and other office products,
for which he received a monthly retainer of 300 Marks. He adapted Prouns in
some cases into his designs for the Pelikan advertisements.
Lissitzky left Switzerland in the spring of 1925, and moved back to
Russia where he subsequently taught as a member of the Wood and Metalwork
faculty of the Moscow VKhUTEMAS. He had become associated by then with the
group ASNOVA (Consortium of New Architects), which advocated a synthesis of
architecture, painting, and sculpture as opposed to a plain utilitarian
approach to architecture. The plans for Lissitzky's
Wolkenbügel project--a building conceived of as a
horizontal skyscraper supported on three piers--were published in 1926 in the
ASNOVA Bulletin, of which Lissitzky was co-publisher and
designer. He continued working as well on an array of typographical projects,
theater, furniture, and exhibition designs, and participated in various
architectural competitions in Russia and Western Europe.
During the years immediately following his departure from Switzerland
in 1925, Lissitzky began focusing his attention in earnest on his activities as
a designer of exhibition spaces, one of his most influential areas of interest
and, by his own account, the most important artistic activity of his career.
His designs for international exhibitions in Dresden (1926, 1930), Hannover
(1930), Cologne (1926), Leipzig (1930), Stuttgart (1929) and elsewhere remain
some of his most significant and influential accomplishments.
His level of activity in later years was somewhat slowed by his
continuing struggles with tuberculosis, for which he sought further treatment
at Abastuman in the Caucasus Mountains for several months in 1935. Despite
declining health during the last years of his life, however, he remained active
in his work until his death on December 21, 1941 at his home in Schodnia, near
Moscow.
Scope and Content of Collection
The archive of El Lissitzky's letters and photographs contains original manuscripts and documentary photographs from the personal
papers of El Lissitzky, the
Russian avant-garde artist who was a leader of Russian Constructivism. The bulk of the archive consists of all the surviving
letters (1923-1935) written by Lissitzky, most in German, to his wife, the art historian Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers.
The archive also contains rare photographs from the late
1920's and early 1930's depicting Lissitzky's innovative designs for international exhibitions. Photographs include reproductions
of some of his designs for art and architectural projects. Two address books, an original inventory of his work, professional
contracts, a personal workbook and official papers, provide further documentation of Lissitzky's personal and professonal
life.
Arrangement
The archive is organized in three series:
Series I.
Letters, most to Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers, 1911, 1923-1941, undated
Series
II. Personal notes and documents, 1911-1912, 1924, undated
Series
III. Photographs, ca. 1920s-1930s
Arp, Jean, 1887-1966
Gropius, Walter, 1883-1969
Lissitzky, El, 1890-1941
Lissitzky-Küppers, Sophie, 1891-
Malevich, Kazimir Severinovich, 1878-1935
Moholy-Nagy, László, 1895-1946
Oud, J. J. P. (Jacobus Johannes Pieter, 1890-1963
Roth, Emil
Tschichold, Jan, 1902-1974
Bauhaus
VKhUTEMAS (Art school)
Advertising layout and typography
Architecture--Soviet Union
Book design--Soviet Union
Constructivism (Architecture)
Exhibitions--Soviet Union
Graphic arts--20th century--Soviet Union
Letterheads
Suprematism in art
Address books
Diaries
Drawings
Ephemera
Letterheads
Photographic prints
Photographs, Original
L'esprit nouveau
Cambridge, MA, Busch-Reisinger Museum.
El Lissitzky 1890-1941 [exh. cat.] 1987.
Cologne, Galerie Gmurzynska.
El Lissitzky [exh. cat.] 1976.
Eindhoven, Municipal Van Abbemuseum.
El Lissitzky [exh. cat.] 1965.
Eindhoven, Municipal Van Abbemuseum.
El Lissitzky 1890-1941: Architect, Painter, Photographer,
Typographer
[exh. cat.] 1990.
Halle, Staatliche Galerie Moritzburg.
El Lissitzky 1890-1941, Retrospektive [exh. cat]
1988.
Lissitzky-Küppers, Sophie.
El Lissitzky 1890-1941: Maler, Architekt, Typograf,
Fotograf
(Dresden: Veb Verlag der Kunst, 1967).
Lissitzky-Küppers, Sophie, and Jen Lissitzky.
El Lissitzky: Proun und Wolkenbügel, Schriften, Briefe,
Dokumente
(Dresden: Veb Verlag der Kunst, 1977).
Westheim, Paul, ed.
Künstlerbekenntnisse: Briefe, Tagebuchblätter,
Betrachtungen heutiger Künstler
(Berlin: Propyläen,
1925).