.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
This photomontage was certainly the image source for one of Lissitzky's most successful and popular Constructivist posters, announcing an exhibition of art from the USSR held in Zurich. The rendering of the Russian youths's faces, hair and expression is in direct correlation to the image offered here. The overlapping, or shared, eye is its most striking invention, a direct tribute to the tool of photomontage.
According to Margarita Tupitsyn, writing in Experiments in Photography, "At the time of its appearance as a poster, this monumental image became something of an icon, reproduced in newspapers around the world as a symbol of the spirit of the youth of the Soviet Union. As the artist explained in "Lissitzky Speaks" (1932): "Every piece of work I did [after returning to the Soviet Union] was an invitation, not to make eyes at it but to take it as a spur to action, to urge our feelings to follow the general line of forming a classeless society." (quoted, Lissitzky-Kppers 1968, p. 326) (op. cit., p. 42)
No reproductions of this image are known to exist. Other versions of this image are known to be in archives in the former Soviet Union. A laterally reversed version from a private collection is reproduced in Weaver, The Art of Photography 1839-1989, Yale University Press, pl. 262 (loc. cit.).
According to Margarita Tupitsyn, writing in Experiments in Photography, "At the time of its appearance as a poster, this monumental image became something of an icon, reproduced in newspapers around the world as a symbol of the spirit of the youth of the Soviet Union. As the artist explained in "Lissitzky Speaks" (1932): "Every piece of work I did [after returning to the Soviet Union] was an invitation, not to make eyes at it but to take it as a spur to action, to urge our feelings to follow the general line of forming a classeless society." (quoted, Lissitzky-Kppers 1968, p. 326) (op. cit., p. 42)
No reproductions of this image are known to exist. Other versions of this image are known to be in archives in the former Soviet Union. A laterally reversed version from a private collection is reproduced in Weaver, The Art of Photography 1839-1989, Yale University Press, pl. 262 (loc. cit.).