KLUTSIS Gustav Gustavovich

January 4, 1895 (Rujiena, near Valmiera, Latvia) — 1938 or 1944 (?)

Painter, graphic artist, photographer

Gustav Klutsis was born to a family of worker. In 1911–1912 he studied in Valmiera Teachers’ seminary. He studied art in Riga municipal art school in 1913–1915, where Vilhelms Purvitis was one of his tutors.

In 1915 Klutsis was called up for military service, for the Okhta infantry unit in Petrograd. In 1917 he became a volunteer in the machinegunners’ detachment of the 9th regiment of the Red Latvian riflemen.

Klutsis attended drawing school under the All-Russian Society for the Encouragement of the Arts (OPKh) in 1915–1918. Since 1918 he lived in Moscow. At that time Klutsis drew a lot: he made sketches on Latvian riflemen’s life, created designs of the Kremlin for the 1st of May 1918, drew a study Red Square on the 1st of May 1918. The sketch for the panel Storm. Stroke at the counter-revolution (1918) was the first graphic work with included photographic image. Klutsis took part in the First art exhibition of works by the Red Latvian riflemen in the Kremlin (1918).

Klutsis studied at the State Free Art Studios (in 1918–1920 under K. A. Korovin, K. S. Malevich and A. A. Pevsner) and at the Higher State Artistic and Technical Workshops (VKhUTEMAS; 1920-1921) in Moscow. At that period of life the artist painted Red Man (1918), Dynamical City (1919), Axonometric Painting (1920; presented to the State Tretyakov Gallery in 1930), so called paintings-things (according to terminology of Klutsis), which he created with different materials, reliefs, concave reliefs, and a series of non-figurative linear, spatial and color compositions. In 1920 he participated in the Exhibition of painting by Nathan Pevsner, sculpture by N. Gabo and school of Pevsner. Gustav Klutsis, and in the exhibition of the group The Champions of the New Art (UNOVIS) in 1921.

In 1922 Klutsis worked in printing house, where he performed a series of constructive projects — lithographs and linocuts — consisted of 20 stories and printed in limited edition. He also developed projects of festive stands for decoration of Moscow city for the 5th anniversary of October and the 4th Congress of the Communist International (Comintern): Radio-Orator. Revolution Megaphone, Radio-Orator. Lenin’s Speech, Screen-Tribune, Screen-Tribune-Kiosk and others. Constructions by Klutsis were published in a lot of magazines, including Proletarian Students, Lef (“Left Front of the Arts”) and Vremya (“Time”). A series of graphical constructions and drafts by the artist were exposed at the international exhibitions in Berlin (1922) and in Paris (1925).

In 1922–1924 Klutsis created clothes designs in constructivist style. In 1927 he performed stained-glass windows for the pavilion at the All-Union printing exhibition (To Lenin — Leader and Organizer of October, We’ve been studying, building, winning for 10 years). He took part in design of the Soviet department at the International exhibition of press in Cologne (1928), and created exhibition equipment for the Exhibition of Soviet Art in Brussels.

In 1924 Klutsis was invited as an associate professor to the Higher State Artistic and Technical Workshops (VKhUTEMAS), where the artist provided trainings at the faculties of graphic art, architecture, fine woodworking, and metal working during 6 years, till breaking up of the VKhUTEMAS — VKhUTEIN (the Higher Art Technical Institute) in 1930.

In 1925–1927 Klutsis was a member of the editorial board and an artist of the Club under the Sokolniki Car Repair Building Plant. In 1927 the Department for Agitation and Propaganda (Agitprop) under Moscow Committee of the All-Union Communist Party Bolsheviks (MK VKPb) published the photomontage political posters, created by Klutsis together with S. Senkin. In 1928 Klutsis participated in organization of the art society October; he published a series of multicolored photomontage postcards for the All-Union sports contest. Since 1929 he worked in the poster department of the publishing house Izogiz (“Fine Arts”). In May of 1930 Klutsis created photomontage section at the exhibition of the society October. In the same year he began to work as an associate professor in the Polygraphic Institute. In June–July Klutsis was called up for retraining in military service as a listener at Moscow V. I. Lenin Political-Military Courses.

During 1930–1935 Klutsis participated in decoration of Moscow city for mass revolution holidays and festivals every year: the agitation stands; artist’s decoration of Moscow squares for the 1st of May 1932 according the theme DneproGES (the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station) is the greatest achievement of social industry (1932); photomontage panel for the Hotel of Mossovet (Moscow municipal council), which later was renamed the Hotel Moskva (Moscow) in 1933.  Klutsis worked as a vice-chairman of the Association of revolution poster art workers (ORRP); he was a member of the poster bureau at Moscow Regional Union of Soviet Artists (MOSSKh), member of auditing committee of the MOSSKh, and section of researchers at the Institute of Literature, Art and Language in the Communist Academy (Komakademiya), where Klutsis delivered lecture Photomontage as a new kind of agitation art within the discussion on pictorial and poster literature in June of 1931. Klutsis together with S. Senkin was sent on a mission to Tiflis, Batumi, Sukhumi, Gorlovka (Donbass) and other cities in order to draw sketches, studies, and make photographies about social construction in these regions (1931). Klutsis was the first who applied two-colored photomontage for design of the front pages of the Pravda (“Truth”) newspaper. He also worked on his manuscript Right to Experiment (1935). In 1936 he was engaged in easel painting and graphic art. In the same year Klutsis made several trips on the instructions of the Latvian society Prometheus, in order to gather material for creative work, to Latvian communities in Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Rostov-on-Don, to Latvian Rudzutaks collective farm (in Azov-Black Sea Krai). There he performed a series of drawings and paintings, such as The Best People — Latvians-Stakhanovites, Life of Latvian People. In 1937 Klutsis was sent on a mission to Paris as an interior designer at the International Exhibition Art and Technology in Modern Life. He also prepared for the International exhibition in New York.

In 1938 Klutsis was convicted on framed-up charges of his participation in “fascist conspiracy of Latvian nationalists”, and was shot. According to another sources of information, Klutsis died in Central Asian concentration camp on March 16 in 1944. He was rehabilitated posthumously in 1956.

Gustav Klutsis was a staunch supporter of so called industrial art, denying easel art and pictorialism (except photo and cinema images). He became one of the inventors of new kind of art in his first photomontage work: Dynamical City (1919) — a terrestrial globe with architecture fragments. His montage posters manifested cult of leaders, contrasts between heroes and faceless masses, aggression, which were characteristic for Soviet culture of that time: Under the Banner of Lenin (1930), USSR — Shock Labour Team of Proletariat of the Whole World (1931), Hello to Global Giant Dneprostroy (construction of Dnieper Hydroelectric Station; 1932), Let’s Raise the Banners of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin! (1933), and many others. Klutsis worked also as a book designer (the album In the memory of the lost leaders, 1927).

Works by Gustav Klutsis are in many museum collections in Russia and abroad, including the State Tretyakov Gallery, the State Museum of V. V. Mayakovsky, the State Art Museum in Riga, the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA) and others.