| Names: | Other: Aleksandr Mikhaylovich Rodchenko
Other: Aleksandr Rodcenko
Other: Aleksandr Rodchenko
Other: Aleksandr Rodtchenko
Other: Alexander Mikhailovich Rodchenko
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| | Dates: | 1891, 23 November - 1956, 3 December | | Born: | Russia, Saint Petersburg (Sankt-Peterburg autonomous city, Rossiya republic) | | Active: | USSR | | Gender: | Male |
Soviet constructivist painter, sculptor, designer and photographer. His photomontages and collages are remarkable political statements and reminiscent of the work of John Heartfield whom he knew.Preparing biographies
Biography provided by Focal Press
A versatile and influential artist in post-revolutionary Russia, Rodchenko helped found the Constructivist movement. His early Constructivist ideas regarding the artists’ role in a progressive Communist society influenced the aesthetics of his wide-ranging projects in various fields of design, photography, and filmmaking. He is known for his experimental photomontage work and innovative photographic composition energized by extreme oblique angles, unorthodox perspectives, and unexpected framing. While he rose to prominence in the cultural bureaucracy of early Bolshevism, his artistic idealism was not able to survive the brutal cultural climate of Stalinism and he spent the last two decades of his life in isolation and obscurity.
(Author: Garie Waltzer - Photographer and consultant)
Michael Peres (Editor-in-Chief), 2007, Focal Encyclopedia of Photography, 4th edition, (Focal Press) [ISBN-10: 0240807405, ISBN-13: 978-0240807409]
(Used with permission)
Readings on, or by, individual photographers
Elliott, David (ed.), 1979, Alexander Rodchenko, 1891–1956, (Oxford, England: Museum of Modern Art) [LL_REF:885]
Khan-Magomedov, SO, 1986, Rodchenko: The Complete Work, (Cambridge: The MIT Press) [LL_REF:886]
Lavrentiev, Alexander, 1995, Alexander Rodchenko: Photography 1924–1954, (Edison, NJ: Knickerbocker Press) [LL_REF:887]
Noever, P. (ed.), 1991, Aleksandr M. Rodchenko and Varvara F. Stepanova, (Munich: Prestel) [LL_REF:1538]
If you feel this list is missing a significant book or article please let me know - Alan - alan@luminous-lint.com
| | Portraits
If you have a portrait of this photographer or know of the whereabouts of one we would be most grateful.
alan@luminous-lint.com |
Family history
If you are related to this photographer and interested in tracking down your extended family we can place a note here for you to help. It is free and you would be amazed who gets in touch.
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Exhibitions on this website |
 | Alexander Rodchenko: Vladimir Mayakovsky: Pro Eto. Ei i Mne (About This. To Her and to Me) |
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All photographs by this photographer
| Wikipedia has a biography of this photographer. | Show on this site | Go to website | | Getty Research, Los Angeles, USA has an ULAN (Union List of Artists Names Online) entry for this photographer. This is useful for checking names and they frequently provide a brief biography. | | Go to website | Grove Art Online (www.groveart.com) has a biography of this artist.
[NOTE: This is a subscription service and you will need to pay an annual fee to access the content.] | Show on this site | Go to website |
The following books are useful starting points to obtain brief biographies but they are not substitutes for the monographs on individual photographers. |
• Beaton, Cecil & Buckland, Gail 1975 The Magic Eye: The Genius of Photography from 1839 to the Present Day (Boston and Toronto: Little, Brown & Company) p.142 [Useful short biographies with personal asides and one or more example images.]
• Capa, Cornell (ed.) 1984 The International Center of Photography: Encyclopedia of Photography (New York, Crown Publishers, Inc. - A Pound Press Book) p.436,437
• Coke, Van Deren with Diana C. Du Pont 1986 Photography: A Facet of Modernism (New York: Hudson Hills Press, The San Francisco Museum of Art) p.182
• Fernandez, Horacio (ed.) 2000 Fotografía Pública: Photography in Print 1919-1939 (Aldeasa) p.209-211 [This Spanish exhibition catalogue is one of the best sources for illustrations of photomontage and book design for the period between the two World Wars.]
• Weaver, Mike (ed.) 1989 The Art of Photography 1839-1989 (New Haven and London: Yale University Press) p.465 [This exhibition catalogue is for the travelling exhibition that went to Houston, Canberra and London in 1989.]
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If there is an analysis of a single photograph or a useful self portrait I will highlight it here. |
| "Contradictions of perspective. Contrasts of light. Contrasts of form. Points of view impossible to achieve in drawing and painting. Foreshortenings with a strong distortion of the objects, with a crude handling of matter. Moments altogether new, never seen before … compositions whose boldness outstrips the imagination of painters … Then the creation of those instants which do not exist, contrived by means of photomontage. The negative transmits altogether new stimuli to the sentient mind and eye." |
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