Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction

Modern & Contemporary Evening Auction

Property from the Hans and Marion König Collection

El Lissitzky

Self-Portrait (The Constructor)

Auction Closed

March 4, 08:29 PM GMT

Estimate

400,000 - 600,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

El Lissitzky

1890 - 1941


Self-Portrait (The Constructor)

partially titled Konstruktor (in the margin)

zincography on silk tissue

37.4 by 42 cm. 14¾ by 16½ in.

Executed in 1924.

Estate of the artist

Galerie Gmurzynska, Cologne

Acquired from the above in March 2019 by the present owners

Traugott Schalcher, "El Lissitzky, Moskau," Gebrauchsgraphik 5, no. 12, December 1928, p. 49, another example illustrated

Paul Westheim, "Zeitlupe," Das Kunstblatt 12, March 1928, p. 89, another example illustrated

Hans Richter and Werner Gräff, Filmgegner von heute—Filmfreunde von morgen, Berlin, 1929, p. 33, another example illustrated

Franz Roh and Jan Tschichold, Foto-Auge: 76 Fotos der Zeit, Stuttgart, 1929, another example illustrated on the cover

Gyorgy Kepes, Language of Vision, Chicago, 1944, p. 226, another example illustrated

Sophie Lissitzky-Küppers, El Lissitzky: Life, Letters, Texts, London, 1968, p. 404, pl. 118, another example illustrated

Dawn Ades, Photomontage, London, 1976, p. 22, no. 102, another example illustrated

Jean-Luc Daval, Photography, History of an Art, New York, 1982, p. 155, illustrated

Christina Lodder, Russian Constructivism, New Haven, 1983, fig. 6.12, p. 192, illustrated

El Lissitzky, 1890 - 1941, Hanover, 1987, p. 12, another example illustrated

El Lissitzky 1890 - 1941, Architect, Painter, Photographer, Typographer, Eindhoven, 1990, no. 117, another example illustrated

Exh. Cat, New York, Houk Friedman Gallery, El Lissitzky: Experiments in Photography, 1991, pl. 9, another example illustrated

Margarita Tupitsyn, El Lissitzky: Beyond the Abstract Cabinet: Photography, Design, Collaboration, New Haven, 1999, p. 82, pl. 15, no. 127, illustrated

Exh. Cat., Los Angeles, Getty Research Institute, Monuments of the Future: Designs by El Lissitzky, 1999, cover and no. 57, another example illustrated

Exh. Cat, New York, The Museum of Modern Art, OBJECT:PHOTO. Modern Photographs: The Thomas Walther Collection 1909–1949, 2014-15, fig. 4 and no. 168, pp. 22 and 261, another example illustrated

Klaus Pollmeier, "El Lissitzky's Multilayer Photographs: A Technical Analysis," in Mitra Abbaspour, Lee Ann Daffner and Maria Morris Hambourg, eds., Object: Photo. Modern Photographs: The Thomas Walther Collection 1909–1949. An Online Project of The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2014, p. 7, another example illustrated

Kai-Uwe Hemken, "Der bioskopische Raum: El Lissitzky’s ‘Raum fuer konstruktive Kunst,’ (1926)," in Aura-Politiken: El Lissitzkys ‘Kabinett der Abstrakten’ zwischen Musealisierung und Teilhabe, Braunschweig, 2017, p. 69, another example illustrated

Cologne, Galerie Gmurzynska, Die Kunstismen in Rußland 1907-1930, May - June 1977, no. 56a, pp. 84 and 208, illustrated

Stuttgart, Württembergischer Kunstverein, Film und Foto der Zwanziger Jahre, 1979, pp. 15 and 36, illustrated

Essen, Museum Folkwang; Werkbund-Archiv, Berlin; Kunsthaus Zürich and Kunstverein Hamburg, Film und Foto der Zwanziger Jahre, 1979, no. 152, p. 134, illustrated

Washington, D. C., Hirshhorn Museum and Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The Avant-Garde in Russia: 1910–1930; New Perspectives, 1980-81, no. 161, p. 191

Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris, El Lissitzky: Rétrospective, 1991 

Catalogue note

(C) 2025 Sotheby's
All alcoholic beverage sales in New York are made solely by Sotheby's Wine (NEW L1046028)