- 463
Gustav Klutsis
Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 USD
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Description
- Gustav Klutsis
- Monumental Display for the Hotel Mossovet (later the Moscow Hotel, now destroyed), 1933
- photomontage
- 10 3/4 by 3 5/8 in.
- 27.3 by 9.2 cm
Provenance
Klutsis and Kulagina Family, Moscow
Private collection, New York
Literature
Margarita Tupitsyn, Gustav Klutsis and Valentina Kulagina: Photography and Montage after Constructivism, New York: International Center of Photography, 2004
Catalogue Note
Gustav Klutsis graduated from the painting department of VKhUTEMAS (Higher State Artistic-Technical Studios) in 1921. Although a devoted member of the Communist Party, he was arrested on false charges and executed amid the Stalinist purges in 1938.
In addition to being an accomplished Constructivist artist, by the early 1920s Klutsis had become a pioneering developer of photomontage. He applied photomontage to designs for posters, magazines, and books throughout the 1920s and 1930s. In his 1931 article "Photomontage as a New Kind of Agitation Art," Klutsis wrote: "Photomontage is an agitation-propaganda form of art... it has earned the full right to be considered a new kind of mass art--the art of socialist construction... Agitation art requires realistic representation created with maximum perfection of technique, possessing graphic clarity and intensity of effect."
Klutsis became one of the most influential Soviet artists to take part in decorating Moscow in preparation for revolutionary and other mass celebrations. We have an idea as to the enormous scale of Klutsis's photomontage murals from a letter dated October 15, 1933, in which the artistic committee of the Communist Party asked the director of the Institute of Architecture to allow Klutsis to use the Institute's fitness gymnasium to work on his murals due to their tremendous size.
Klutsis used straight photography as a tool to document the various stages of his photomontage productions. Re-photographing a handmade photomontage in its preprinted states enabled Klutsis to construct an inventory for each photomontage, tracing it from conception to reproduction.
In addition to being an accomplished Constructivist artist, by the early 1920s Klutsis had become a pioneering developer of photomontage. He applied photomontage to designs for posters, magazines, and books throughout the 1920s and 1930s. In his 1931 article "Photomontage as a New Kind of Agitation Art," Klutsis wrote: "Photomontage is an agitation-propaganda form of art... it has earned the full right to be considered a new kind of mass art--the art of socialist construction... Agitation art requires realistic representation created with maximum perfection of technique, possessing graphic clarity and intensity of effect."
Klutsis became one of the most influential Soviet artists to take part in decorating Moscow in preparation for revolutionary and other mass celebrations. We have an idea as to the enormous scale of Klutsis's photomontage murals from a letter dated October 15, 1933, in which the artistic committee of the Communist Party asked the director of the Institute of Architecture to allow Klutsis to use the Institute's fitness gymnasium to work on his murals due to their tremendous size.
Klutsis used straight photography as a tool to document the various stages of his photomontage productions. Re-photographing a handmade photomontage in its preprinted states enabled Klutsis to construct an inventory for each photomontage, tracing it from conception to reproduction.