About Two Squares: A Suprematist Tale of Two Squares in Six Constructions
<p>About Two Squares is a children’s book about a black square and a red square that fly to earth from afar. For Lissitzky they symbolized the superiority of the new Soviet order (the red square) over the old (the black square). The artist’s abstract style was profoundly influenced by Kazimir Malevich's Suprematism, but after 1921 he aligned himself with Russian Constructivist principles and sought to move Suprematism’s abstract language into the service of the new social and political order.</p>
Catalogue
- Year
- 1922
- Dimensions
- 21.7 × 26.8 × 0.5 cm (8 9/16 × 10 9/16 × 1/4 in.)
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Artist
- El Lissitzky
Artist
Painting
El Lissitzky was a Russian and Soviet artist, active as a painter, illustrator, designer, printmaker, photographer, and architect. He was an important figure of the avant-garde, helping develop suprematism with his mentor, Kazimir Malevich, and designing numerous exhibition displays and propaganda works for the Soviet Union.
Full artist profile →More
More by El Lissitzky
Ispaniia. !No Pasaran! (Spain! They Shall Not Pass!)
1937 · Printed book with letterpress and photolithography, embossing and collaged photograph
The Industry of Socialism (Industriia sotsializma)
1935 · Letterpress and gravure, complete set of 7 volumes in a slipcase
Tekhnicheskaia propaganda
1933 · Book
SSSR na stroike. Ezhemesiachnyi illiustrirovannyi zhurnal. Posviashchen 15 letiiu krasnoi armii (USSR in Construction, Monthly Illustrated Journal: Fifteen Years of the Red Army), no. 2
1933 · Journal, photogravure printed
SSSR stroit sotsializm (USSR Builds Socialism)
1933 · Album illustrated with photomontages and decorated cloth-backed cream boards
Arkhitektura sovremennogo Zapada (Western Architecture Today)
1932 · Illustrated book with gilt lettered blue cloth cover, decorated title-page and photomontages
Record
Verified by WattsOS- Artist
- El Lissitzky
- Year
- 1922
- Dimensions
- 21.7 × 26.8 × 0.5 cm (8 9/16 × 10 9/16 × 1/4 in.)
- Watts ID
- WW-1922-128998
Source
- Collection
- Art Institute of Chicago
- Source
- aic
- Reference
- View at source
- Status
- verified