RODCHENKO PHOTOGRAPHY
Alexander Lavrentjev
Alexander Lavrentjev: RODCHENKO PHOTOGRAPHY. New York: Rizzoli, 1982. First edition. Quarto. Gray cloth titled in black. Photo illustrated dust jacket. Unpaginated. 159 quadtone plates. Textblock edges lightly sunned. Jacket with trivial wear. A nearly fine copy in a nearly fine dust jacket.
9.25 x 10.75 hardcover book with 159 quadtone plates by Aleksandr Rodchenko. Beautifully designed and printed by Schirmer/Mosel GmbH, Munich.
Russian constructivist artist Aleksandr Rodchenko, known for his avant-garde paintings, collages, graphics, sculpture and stage designs, took up photography in 1924 and proceeded to transform the medium with his dynamic compositions, inventive use of photomontage and radical experiments with foreshortened perspective. In this comprehensive monograph, art historian Lavrentiev, the artist's grandson, presents more than 150 of Rodchenko's photographs, and discusses the artist's life, aesthetics and working methods. There are brutally honest portraits of the artist's wife, friends and fellow artists, and bleak scenes of life in the former Soviet Union, with its gloomy streets, ugly industrial buildings, official sports events and somber military parades. The powerful photographs, distinguished by the artist's use of extreme angles that often distort the figures to the point of grotesqueness, are telling statements about the world in which Rodchenko lived.
In the aftermath of the Russian Revolution of 1917, a group of artists who came to call themselves Constructivists sets out to create a new art in the spirit of the new society to come. Aleksandr Rodchenko (1891-1956), the most important and versatile member of the group, made outstanding and original works in virtually every field of the visual arts. In the first part of his career, Rodchenko produced innovative abstract painting, sculpture, prints and drawings. In 1921, however, he made a bold break, committing himself to applied art in the service of revolutionary ideals, and moving on to lasting achievements in photocollage, photography, and design of all kinds: books, posters, magazines, advertising, furniture.