Constructivism

A Russian movement born around 1915–20 that turned the avant-garde's abstraction toward building a new, socialist society. Vladimir Tatlin made reliefs from real materials (wood, metal, glass) and designed the vast spiralling Monument to the Third International; Alexander Rodchenko, Varvara Stepanova, Lyubov Popova and El Lissitzky moved from easel painting into posters, photography, typography, textiles, furniture and stage sets, declaring that art should be useful. Its bold diagonals, red and black and photomontage shaped Soviet graphics in the 1920s. Naum Gabo, Antoine Pevsner and László Moholy-Nagy took a more sculptural version to the West and to the Bauhaus.

How to tell it apart: hard geometric construction, industrial materials, diagonals and a limited palette of red, black and white, often in design rather than painting; Suprematism is more mystical and painterly.

147 works in the quiz. Play a round on Constructivism.

Artists

László Moholy-Nagy · El Lissitzky · Vladimir Tatlin · Sophie Taeuber-Arp · Alexander Rodchenko · Lyubov Popova · Joaquín Torres-García · Varvara Stepanova · Ivan Kliun · Heinrich Hoerle · Franz Wilhelm Seiwert

Best-known works

“Sailor” — Vladimir Tatlin, 1911
“Tête Dada” — Sophie Taeuber-Arp, 1920
“Corner Counter-Relief” — Vladimir Tatlin, 1914
“Proun G.B.A.” — El Lissitzky, 1923
“E IV (Construction VII)” — László Moholy-Nagy, 1922
“Portrait of Josep Pijoan” — Joaquín Torres-García
“Monument of the unknown prosthesis” — Heinrich Hoerle, 1930
“Melancholy Girl” — Heinrich Hoerle, 1930
“Portrait of Trude Alex” — Heinrich Hoerle, 1933
“Carnival” — Heinrich Hoerle, 1929
“LIS” — László Moholy-Nagy, 1922
“Temple to the Nymphs” — Joaquín Torres-García, 1901–1911
“Birsk” — Lyubov Popova, 1916
“Leda y el cisne” — László Moholy-Nagy
“Composition Aubette” — Sophie Taeuber-Arp
“Artist's model” — Vladimir Tatlin, 1910
“Portrait of the artist” — Vladimir Tatlin, 1912
“Proun 19D” — El Lissitzky, 1920–1921
“Board No. 1, Staro-Basman” — Vladimir Tatlin, 1917
“Fishmonger” — Vladimir Tatlin, 1911
“Female Model” — Vladimir Tatlin, 1913
“Meat” — Vladimir Tatlin, 1947
“Flower Bouquet” — Vladimir Tatlin, 1911
“Painterly construction” — Lyubov Popova, 1920
“Space-power construction” — Lyubov Popova, 1921
“Painterly Architectonic” — Lyubov Popova, 1917
“Painterly Architectonic (Black, Red, Grey)” — Lyubov Popova, 1917
“Ciudad” — Joaquín Torres-García, 1941
“Estructura constructiva con formas geométricas” — Joaquín Torres-García, 1943
“A 18” — László Moholy-Nagy, 1927