RODCHENKO Alexander Mikhailovich

December 5, 1891 (St. Petersburg) — November 3, 1956 (Moscow)

Painter, graphic artist, industrial designer, scene-designer, photographer

Alexander Rodchenko was the son of a theatrical property maker. From 1910 to 1914 he studied at Kazan Art School under the painter Nikolai Feshin. In 1914 he moved to Moscow, where he married the artist Varvara Stepanova and entered the Stroganov School of Industrial Art. In those years Rodchenko developed an interest in the Art Nouveau style and created decorative vignettes.  Since 1915 he created graphic compositions with the help of a ruler and a compass. He also started to make collages. In 1916 Rodchenko took part in a Futurist exhibition called Magazin (“Shop”) alongside such avant-garde luminaries as Lyubov Popova, Vladimir Tatlin and Alexandra Exter. In 1917 he helped Vladimir Tatlin and Georgy Yakulov to design the interior of the cafe Pittoresque on the Kuznetsky Most in the centre of Moscow. He also worked on his own projects for lighting equipment.

In 1918–1920 Rodchenko developed spatial constructions. In 1918 he started working at the Department of Fine Arts of the National commissariat of education (Narkompros); from 1918 to 1926 he taught at the ProletCult (Proletarian Culture) school in Moscow. In 1920 he became a member of the Institute of Art Culture (Inkhuk). He was also one of the founders of the industrial faculty at the Higher State Artistic and Technical Workshops (VKhUTEMAS), which later transformed into the Higher Art Technical Institute (VKhUTEIN). In those institutions he was dean of the metalwork department.

In the 1920s Rodchenko worked with the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky in the field of poster and book design. In 1925 he showed his works at the 5 х 5 = 25 exhibition. The same year he also participated in the International Exposition of Modern Industrial and Decorative Arts in Paris where he exhibited equipment for a workers’ club. That work won him four silver medals.

Since the beginning of the 1920s Rodchenko created theatrical designs. In 1920 he supplied costume designs for Aleksey Gan’s play Mi (“We”), which, however, wasn’t staged.  In 1929 he worked on the scenic design for Vladimir Mayakovsky’s play Klop (“The Bedbug”), which was staged at the theatre of Vsevolod Meyerhold. In 1931 he provided designs for One-Sixth of the World, a Moscow Music Hall performance. He also contributed articles and photographs for the magazines LEF (acronym for “Levy Front”, or “The Left Front [of the Arts]”) from 1923 to 1925 and Novy LEF (“The New LEF”) from 1927 to 1928. In the late 1920s he started to dedicate himself more and more to photography.

In 1930 he joined the October group, whose members included Gustav Klutsis and El Lissitzky. In the 1930s and 1940s, due to the predominance of Social Realism, Rodchenko fell out of favour with the Soviet state, and was ruthlessly criticized. Since 1935 he and Varvara Stepanova worked on photo albums and magazines for the publishing house Izogiz (“Fine Arts”).  In the beginning of the 1940s Rodchenko produced paintings whose style was similar to that of the Abstract Expressionists.