Alexander Rodchenko

by Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko

Photographs by the Russian artist portray the social life of the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s

Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Rodchenko (Алекса́ндр Миха́йлович Ро́дченко) was a Russian artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism and Russian design; he was married to the artist Varvara Stepanova.

Rodchenko was one of the most versatile Constructivist and Productivist artists to emerge after the Russian Revolution. He worked as a painter and graphic designer before turning to photomontage and photography. His photography was socially engaged, formally innovative, and opposed to a painterly aesthetic. Concerned with the need for analytical-documentary photo series, he often shot his subjects from odd angles—usually high above or down below—to shock the viewer and to postpone recognition. He wrote: "One has to take several different shots of a subject, from different points of view and in different situations, as if one examined it in the round rather than looked through the same key-hole again and again."

Reviews

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the everyday street scenes a captivating look into the past.