Lot 48
48
EL LISSITZKY (1890-1941)
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EL LISSITZKY (1890-1941)

Workers and smokestacks, c.1930

Details
EL LISSITZKY (1890-1941)
Workers and smokestacks, c.1930
gelatin silver print
5 7/8 x 7 7/8in. (15 x 20cm.)
Provenance
From the artist;
by descent to Jen Lissitzky, his son;
with Barry Friedman Ltd., New York.
Literature
El Lissitzky: Experiments in Photography, Houk Friedman Gallery, 1991, pl.21; Tupitsyn, El Lissitzky: Experiments in Photography, Yale UP, 1996, p.49, pl.21; Sotheby's, New York, Important Avant-Garde Photographs of the 1920s & 1930s: The Helene Anderson Collection, 2 May 1997, lot 113, for a laterally reversed variant.
Exhibited
El Lissitzky: Experiments in Photography, Houk Friedman Gallery, New York, 17 April--1 June, 1991; El Lissitzky: Beyond the Abstract Cabinet, Sprengel Museum, Hannover, 17 January--4 April, 1999; Mestres del Collage: De Picasso a Rauschenberg, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona, n.d.
Special notice
VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 15% on the buyer's premium

Lot Essay

This print is believed to be unique and unpublished in this version.

In late 1929, Lissitzky was made responsible for two exhibition designs promoting Soviet interests abroad: the International Hygiene Exhibition, Dresden, and the International Fur Trade Exhibition, Leipzig. A large print of this image is visible (though partially obscured) in the installation photograph for the Dresden venue.

The Houk-Friedman exhibition catalogue notes: 'Possibly four separate images were used to make this photo montage. Three of these images (with the exception of the tractor driver, center) plus an image of an architectural model comprise the photo montage by Lissitzky entitled Five Year Plan Architecture, dated 1931.' (Experiments in Photography, 1991, p.48)

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