Russian avant-garde

Kazimir Malevich, Black Square, 1915

Alexander Rodchenko, Dance. An Objectless Composition, 1915


El Lissitzky, Beat the Whites With the Red Wedge, lithograph, 1919


Wassily Kandinsky, "On White II", 1923


Shukhov Tower, 1922


Ilya Golosov, Zuev Club, 1926


Melnikov House, Moscow, 1929
The Russian avant-garde is an umbrella term used to define the large, influential wave of
modern art that flourished in Russia (or more accurately, the Russian Empire and the Soviet
Union) approximately 1890 to 1930 - although some place its beginning as early as 1850 and its
end as late as 1960. The term covers many separate, but inextricably related, art movements that
occurred at the time; namely Neo-primitivism, suprematism, constructivism, and futurism. Given
that many of these avant-garde artists were born or grew up in what is present day Belarus and
Ukraine (including Kazimir Malevich, Aleksandra Ekster, Vladimir Tatlin, Wassily Kandinsky,
David Burliuk, Alexander Archipenko), some sources also talk about Ukrainian avant-garde.
The Russian avant-garde reached its creative and popular height in the period between the
Russian Revolution of 1917 and 1932, at which point the ideas of the avant-garde clashed with
the newly emerged state-sponsored direction of Socialist Realism. Notable figures from this era
include:
Contents
1 Artists and Designers
2 Journals
3 Filmmakers
4 Writers
5 Theatre Directors
6 Architects
7 Composers
8 Main Articles
9 External links
10 References
Artists and Designers
Nathan Altman
Alexander Archipenko
Vladimir Baranoff-Rossine
Alexander Bogomazov
David Burliuk
Vladimir Burliuk
Marc Chagall
Ilya Chashnik
Aleksandra Ekster
Robert Falk
Pavel Filonov
Naum Gabo
Nina Genke-Meller
Natalia Goncharova
Mikhail Larionov
Michail Grobman
Francisco Infante-Arana
Wassily Kandinsky
Ivan Kliun
Gustav Klutsis
Aristarkh Lentulov
El Lissitzky
Kazimir Malevich
Paul Mansouroff
Mikhail Matyushin
Vadim Meller
Solomon Nikritin
Liubov Popova
Ivan Puni
Kliment Red'ko
Alexei Remizov
Alexander Rodchenko
Olga Rozanova
Lopold Survage
Varvara Stepanova
Georgii and Vladimir Stenberg
Vladimir Tatlin
Vasiliy Yermilov
Nadezhda Udaltsova
Alexandr Zhdanov
Journals
LEF
Mir iskusstva
Filmmakers
Alexander Dovzhenko
Dziga Vertov
Grigori Aleksandrov
Lev Kuleshov
Sergei Eisenstein
Vsevolod Pudovkin
Writers
Velimir Khlebnikov
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Sergei Tretyakov
Alexei Remizov
Theatre Directors
Vsevolod Meyerhold
Nikolai Evreinov
Yevgeny Vakhtangov
Sergei Eisenstein
Architects
Yakov Chernikhov
Moisei Ginzburg
Ilya Golosov
Ivan Leonidov
Konstantin Melnikov
Vladimir Shukhov
Alexander Vesnin
Preserving Russian avant-garde architecture has become a real concern for historians, politicians
and architects. In 2007, the Modern Museum of Art MoMA in New York, devoted an exhibition
entirely to the *Lost Vanguard: Soviet Architecture, featuring the work of American
Photographer Richard Pare.
Composers
Samuil Feinberg
Arthur Louri
Nikolai Medtner
Alexander Mossolov
Nikolai Borissovitch Obuchov
Nikolai Roslavets
Leonid Sabaneyev
Alexander Scriabin
Many Russian composers that were interested in avant-garde music became members of the
Association for Contemporary Music which was headed by Roslavets.
Main Articles
Constructivism
VKhUTEMAS
Russian Futurism
Cubo-Futurism
Suprematism
Constructivist architecture
Soviet art
Avant-garde
Russian Symbolism
External links
Why did Soviet Photographic Avant-garde decline?
The Russian Avant-garde Foundation
Thessaloniki State Museum of Contemporary Art - Costakis Collection
Yiddish Book Collection of the Russian Avant-Garde at the Beinecke Rare Book and
Manuscript Library at Yale University
International campaign to save the Shukhov Tower in Moscow
Masters of Russian Avant-garde
References
Friedman, Julia. Beyond Symbolism and Surrealism: Alexei Remizov's Synthetic Art,
Northwestern University Press, 2010. ISBN 0-8101-2617-6 (Trade Cloth)
Russian avant-garde - video
Kovalenko, G.F. (ed.) The Russian Avant-Garde of 1910-1920 and Issues of
Expressionism. Moscow: Nauka, 2003.
Shishanov V.A. Vitebsk Museum of Modern Art: a history of creation and a collection.
1918-1941. - Minsk: Medisont, 2007. - 144 p.[1]