Lazar Markovich (El) Lissitzky was a famous Russian artist and painter of the Constructivist movement and perhaps one of its most famous advocates. His connections with Germany and his printing abilities helped make his work internationally known. He studied painting under the same teacher as Marc Chagall (Iurii (Yehuda) Moiseevich Pen) in Vitebsk, Russia, and later studied engineering at the technical university in Darmstadt Germany, finishing his studies as an engineer/architect in Russia. This fact foreshadows the importance of travel (and collaboration) in El Lissitzky’s life and work.


Lissitzky worked with Kasimir Malevich, Kurt Schwitters, Jan Tschichold, Mart Stam and many others, and he taught at the VKhUTEMAS in Moscow.


MoMA writes about Lissitzky: At the behest of Marc Chagall, Lissitzky accepted the directorship of the graphic workshop at the Vitebsk Art Institute in 1919. Following Kazimir Malevich's arrival at the school, Lissitzky became greatly influenced by Suprematism and began to work in an abstract style. He invented imagery known as Proun (Project for the Affirmation of the New), which consisted of images of floating architectonic structures that occupied an imagined three-dimensional space through which one might move above, below, and through.


El Lissitzky also worked with Dada artist Kurt Schwitters, Hans Arp and Vilmos Huszar (even trading names in the credit for a photogram published in Merz in 1923). Lissitzky also collaborated a great deal with Sophie Küppers-Lissitzky who he married in 1927.