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Suprematism Movement
The movement’s leader, Kazimir Malevich, developed a painting style that he called PROUNS (“projects for the establishment of a new art”), which introduced three-dimensional illusions that both receded behind the picture plane and projected forward from the picture plane. He developed visual ideas about balance, space, and form in his paintings, which became the basis for his graphic design and architecture. -
de Stijl Movement
The leaders of this movement rejected both utilitarian function and pictorial representation, instead sought the “expression of feeling, seeking no practical values, ideas or promised land.” They believed that the essence of the art experience was the perceptual effect of color. Visual form became the content, and expressive qualities developed from the intuitive organization of the forms and colors. -
Constructivism Movement
This movement was launched in the Netherlands in the late summer of 1917. Working in an abstract geometric style, the leaders of this movement sought universal laws of equilibrium and harmony for art, which could then be a prototype for a new social order -
El Lissitzky
The constructivist ideal was best exemplified by El Lissitzky who was influenced by Kasimir Malevich and applied suprematist theory to constructivism, as evident in the 1919 poster “Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge” in which he transformed suprematist design elements into political symbolism for communication purposes. -
Ideological split developed in Russia
By 1920, a deep ideological split developed in Russia concerning the role of the artist in the new communist state. Some artists argued that art should remain an essentially spiritual activity apart from the utilitarian needs of society. They rejected a social or political role, others renounced “art for art’s sake” to devote themselves to industrial design, visual communications & applied arts serving the new communist society. -
Vladimir Vasilevich Lebedev
With the growth of the Soviet children’s book industry under Vladimir Lenin’s New Economic Policy of the 1920s, Vladimir Vasilevich Lebedev became the father of the twentieth-century Russian picture book. He cultivated “infantilism” in his work by borrowing the spontaneous and naïve techniques of children’s art. In his picture books, he illustrated Marxist parables on the superiority of the Soviet system to capitalism. -
Henryk Berlewi
The Polish designer Henryk Berlewi evolved his mechano-faktura theory while working in Germany in 1922 and 1923. He believed that modern art was filled with illusionistic pitfalls, so he mechanized painting and graphic design into a constructed abstraction that abolished any illusions of three dimensions. -
"The Isms of Art"
One of the most influential book designs of the 1920s was "The Isms of Art", a 48 page pictorially illustrated portfolio that El Lissitzky edited with Dadaist, Hans Arp. The format for this book was an important step toward the creation of a visual program for organizing information. Other important design considerations included asymmetrical balance, silhouette halftones, skillful use of white space & sans-serif typography with bold rules, an early expression of the modernist aesthetic -
"Novyi lef" (Left Front of the Arts)
Théo van Doesburg edited and published the journal, Novyi lef. He designed a logo for the magazine with letters constructed from an open grid of squares and rectangles. The publication advocated the absorption of pure art by applied art and became a natural vehicle for expressing the movement’s principles through graphic design -
"Getting Married"
A good example of Ladislav Sutnar's work is the 1929 cover design for "Getting Married", in which a triangle creates a strong focal point, unifies the silhouetted figures, and becomes the main structural element in a delicately balanced composition. -
László Moholy-Nagy
He saw type as form and texture, to be composed with a rectangle, lines, and spatial intervals in order to achieve dynamic equilibrium through which clarity of communication and harmony of form could be achieved, as in his design for Arthur Lehning’s avant-garde publication i10. The words run vertically, bold sans-serif type placed into serif text for emphasis, bullets separating paragraphs, and bold bars by page numbers. -
Ladislav Sutnar
In Czechoslovakia, Ladislav Sutnar became the leading supporter and practitioner of functional design. He advocated the constructivist ideal and the application of design principles to every aspect of contemporary life. His book jackets and editorial designs evinced an organizational simplicity and typographic clarity, giving graphic impact to the communication. -
Gustav Klutsis
The master of propaganda photomontage, referred to the
medium as “the art construction for socialism.” He used the poster as a means of extolling Soviet accomplishments, as in the 1931 poster “Building Socialism Under the Banner of Lenin.” His work has been compared to John Heartfield’s powerful political posters. -
Théo van Doesburg
The de Stijl movement’s founder and guiding spirit, Théo van Doesburg, was de Stijl, so it is understandable that de Stijl as an organized movement did not survive his death at age forty-seven in 1931.