Rodchenko, Aleksandr. 1891–1956, Russian painter, sculptor, photographer, and designer, b. St. Petersburg. One of the most important and versatile avant-garde artists to emerge after the Russian Revolution, he was a leading adherent of constructivism constructivism, Russian art movement founded c.1913 by Vladimir Tatlin , related to the movement known as suprematism . After 1916 the brothers Naum Gabo and Antoine Pevsner gave new impetus to Tatlin's art of purely abstract (although politically intended)
..... Click the link for more information. . Influenced by suprematism suprematism, Russian art movement founded (1913) by Casimir Malevich in Moscow, parallel to constructivism . Malevich drew Aleksandr Rodchenko and El Lissitzky to his revolutionary, nonobjective art.
..... Click the link for more information. , he began to create abstract geometrical drawings and paintings beginning in the mid-1910s. His Black on Black (1918) was painted after his colleague Casimir Malevich Malevich, Casimir or Kasimir
..... Click the link for more information. 's celebrated White on White (1918). Particularly active artistically from 1917 to 1921, he worked with the constructivist Vladimir Tatlin to create abstract sculptures marked by pierced geometrical forms and the use of wood, metal, and cardboard. Rodchenko also turned his attention to photomontage, which led to his active work as a photographer. His striking, dramatic, and often stylized images of friends, family, and public life made him the foremost Soviet photographer of the 1920s. His later photographs were generally more overtly political. Rodchenko was also an outstanding designer of posters, books, and sets and costumes for theater and film.

Bibliography

See A. Rodchenko and V. Stepanova, The Future Is Our Only Goal (tr. 1991); D. Elliott, Rodchenko and the Arts of Revolutionary Russia (1979); A. Lavrentiev, Alexander Rodchenko, Photography, 1924–1954 (1996); V. Margolin, The Struggle for Utopia: Rodchenko, Lissitsky, Moholy-Nagy, 1917–1946 (1997); M. Dabrowski, Alexander Rodchenko: Russian Revolutionary Modernist (1998) and Alexander Rodchenko: Painting, Drawing, Collage, Design, Photography (2002); G. Gmurzynnska, Alexander Rodchenko: Spatial Constructions: Catalogue Raisonné of Sculptures (2002).

Rodchenko, Aleksandr (Mikhailovich)

(born Dec. 5, 1891, St. Petersburg, Russia—died Dec. 3, 1956, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R.) Russian painter, sculptor, designer, and photographer. He initially embraced a completely abstract, highly geometric style, using a ruler and compass. His series of black-on-black geometric paintings (1918) was a direct response to Kazimir Malevich's painting White on White. In 1919, influenced by Vladimir Tatlin, he began to make hanging three-dimensional constructions that were, in effect, mobiles. As leader of a wing of Constructivism that sought to produce works appropriate to workers' daily lives, he renounced easel painting and took up photography and book, furniture, and set design. His innovations in lighting in his photography influenced Sergei Eisenstein. He returned to easel painting in the 1930s.