The Fire Came and Burnt the Stick

El Lissitzky, born Lazar Markovitch Lissitzky in Pochinok, Russia, was perhaps the most brilliant expositor of cubo-futurism and then Soviet constructivism. Between 1915 and 1919, he was an active participant in efforts to develop a new Jewish art in Russia. As a youth, Lissitzky studied drawing with the Russian Jewish painter Yehudah Pen in Vitebsk, pursued architectural engineering in Darmstadt, and traveled extensively in Europe, visiting galleries and sketching buildings and landscapes. During the summers of 1915 and 1916, he participated in the Jewish Historical and Ethnographic Society’s expeditions and was inspired by the extraordinary synagogue frescoes he encountered. Between 1917 and 1919, he drew close to other figures seeking to spark a “Jewish cultural renaissance.” He participated in the first exhibition of Jewish artists in Moscow in 1917, worked with Moyshe Broderzon to create what he called “the new Jewish book,” and supplied illustrations for numerous Yiddish, Hebrew, and Russian Jewish publications, particularly books and journals for children. Beginning in 1919, Lissitzky began to relinquish the idea of creating a Jewish national style and played a central role in developing the nonrepresentational and revolutionary constructivist and suprematist styles. After some years in Berlin, he returned to the Soviet Union. In the 1920s and 1930s, he was an important presence in the world of Soviet art as a painter, graphic designer, architect, pavilion designer, typographer, and photographer.