El Lissitzky

Lazar Markovich Lissitzky 1890-1941. Educated at the TU Darmstadt in Germany, a teacher at the important Vitebsk School of Fine Arts and a professor of the School of Interior Architecture in Moscow, he was a leading figure of the Russian avant-garde, developer of the Suprematist movement with Kazimir Malevich, an artist, architect, photographer,  illustrator, Yiddishist, typographer and designer.

Known as El Lissitzky, born in Pochinok in the Russian Empire, to a Jewish family as a young man he travelled widely in Europe before and after WW1, he lived for a time in Berlin coming into contact with Bauhaus students.

His influence on graphic design resonates to this day, a series of his designs were informed by ‘prouns’, a name he created to describe abstract geometric shapes. Despite the purging of and stifling of the avant-garde by Stalin, he retained his role as a representative of the Soviet Government and remained Stalin’s Head of Exhibitions.

He died in Russia in 1941 of TB, he had suffered for 20 years

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