Constructivism movement was a particularly austere branch of abstract art founded by Vladimir Tatlin and Alexander Rodchenko in Russia around 1915
The constructivists believed art should directly reflect the modern industrial world. Vladimir Tatlin was crucially influenced by Pablo Picasso’s cubist constructions (Construction 1914) which he saw in Picasso’s studio in Paris in 1913. These were three-dimensional still lifes made of scrap materials. Tatlin began to make his own but they were completely abstract and made of industrial materials.
By 1921 Russian artists who followed Tatlin’s ideas were calling themselves constructivists and in 1923 a manifesto was published in their magazine Lef:
The material formation of the object is to be substituted for its aesthetic combination. The object is to be treated as a whole and thus will be of no discernible ‘style’ but simply a product of an industrial order like a car, an aeroplane and such like. Constructivism is a purely technical mastery and organisation of materials.
Constructivism was suppressed in Russia in the 1920s but was brought to the West by Naum Gabo and his brother Antoine Pevsner and has been a major influence on modern sculpture.
Constructivism Movement Artists
Joaquin Torres Garcia, Spanish, 1874 – 1949
Aleksandra Ekster, Russian, 1882 – 1949
Vadym Meller, Ukrainian, 1884 – 1962
Janos Mattis-Teutsch, Hungarian, 1884 – 1960
Vladimir Tatlin, Russian, 1885 – 1953
Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, German, 1886 – 1969
Lajos Kassak, Hungarian, 1887 – 1967
Josef Albers, German, 1888 – 1976
Oskar Schlemmer, German, 1888 – 1943
Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Swiss, 1889 – 1943
Lyubov Popova, Russian, 1889 – 1924
Peter Laszlo Peri, British, 1889 – 1967
Naum Gabo, Russian, 1890 – 1977, 16
Carl Buchheister, German, 1890 – 1964
Vytautas Kairiukstis, Lithuanian, 1890 – 1961
El Lissitzky, Russian, 1890 – 1941
Erich Buchholz, German, 1891 – 1972
Alexander Rodchenko, Russian, 1891 – 1956
Emilio Pettoruti, 1892 – 1971
Sandor Bortnyik, Hungarian, 1893 – 1976
Henryk Stazewski, Polish, 1894 – 1988
Vasyl Yermylov, Ukrainians, 1894 – 1968
Henryk Berlewi, French, 1894 – 1967
M. H. Maxy, Jewish, 1895 – 1971
Anatol Petrytsky, Ukrainian, 1895 – 1964
Alexander Khvostenko-Khvostov, Russian, 1895 – 1968
Marcel Janco, Jewish, 1895 – 1984
Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Hungarian, 1895 – 1946
Katarzyna Kobro, Russian, 1898 – 1951
Anni Albers, American, 1899 – 1994
Anton Prinner, Hungarian, 1902 – 1983
Richard Paul Lohse, Swiss, 1902 – 1988
José Pedro Costigliolo, Uruguayan, 1902 – 1985
Burgoyne Diller, American, 1906 – 1965
György Kepes, Hungarian, c.1906 – c.2001
Petre Otskheli, Georgian, 1907 – 1937
Edgar Negret, Colombian, 1920 – 2012
Ramirez Villamizar, Colombian, 1922 – 2004
Mateo Manaure, Venezuela, 1926- 2018
