"The Architecture of the Book": El Lissitzky's Works on Paper, 1919-1937 The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Johnson, Samuel. 2015. "The Architecture of the Book": El Lissitzky's Works on Paper, 1919-1937. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:17463124 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA “The Architecture of the Book”: El Lissitzky’s Works on Paper, 1919-1937 A dissertation presented by Samuel Johnson to The Department of History of Art and Architecture in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the subject of History of Art and Architecture Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts May 2015 © 2015 Samuel Johnson All rights reserved. Dissertation Advisor: Professor Maria Gough Samuel Johnson “The Architecture of the Book”: El Lissitzky’s Works on Paper, 1919-1937 Abstract Although widely respected as an abstract painter, the Russian Jewish artist and architect El Lissitzky produced more works on paper than in any other medium during his twenty year career. Both a highly competent lithographer and a pioneer in the application of modernist principles to letterpress typography, Lissitzky advocated for works of art issued in “thousands of identical originals” even before the avant-garde embraced photography and film. Lissitzky also devoted more effort to theorizing what he called “the architecture of the book” than to any other single issue, publishing statements in 1919, 1923, 1927 and 1931 that demonstrate a consistency otherwise lacking from his incredibly varied career. This phrase encapsulates Lissitzky’s view of the book as a global structure uniting all the formal and technical capabilities of a culture: initially derived from Victor Hugo’s claim that Gutenberg’s invention of moveable type had replaced architecture as the universal form of popular expression, Lissitzky’s term emblematizes the expanded field of architecture in which he operated. This dissertation approaches Lissitzky as a theorist and practitioner of this expanded architectural field. Chapters one and two outline Lissitzky’s general project, treating the lithographic portfolios in which he circulated his abstract paintings and the journals and books he designed as model structures of print’s “architecture.” Its third chapter examines the changes that Lissitzky’s experiments with photography, both in cameraless abstract compositions and multi- iii negative montages, wrought on his conception of print. Rather than conceiving photography and film as exemplars of reproducibility as such, Lissitzky saw them as heralding a reorganization of existing systems of reproducible media linked by a broad cultural practice of reading. Chapter four shows how artists and printers in the USSR continued to debate these evolving practices of cultural literacy under Stalin, negotiating new technological possibilities and new political demands. As a leading figure in this debate, Lissitzky’s works exemplified the contradiction between advancing technical possibilities and diminishing popular participation in public life while remaining entirely affirmative toward the regime. The dissertation’s final chapter places the photographic albums Lissitzky produced in collaboration with his partner, Sophie Küppers, in relation to an emergent Stalinist patron class. iv Table of Contents Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………….vi List of Figures……….…………………………………………………………. viii Glossary and Abbreviations…………………………………………………..... xiv Introduction: The Architect and the Book………………………….……………. 1 1. Paper Architecture: Vitebsk and Moscow, 1919-1921…………………….…… 20 2. The International Set: Germany, 1922-1924…………………………………… 65 3. Not Painting: Locarno and Moscow, 1924-1929……………………………….107 4. Getting Out of the Kitchen: Moscow and Skhodnia, 1928-1933……………… 153 5. Abundance and Survival, 1934-1937…………………………………………...194 Conclusion ..……………………………………………………………………230 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………235 Figures………………………………………………………………………… 251 v Acknowledgments If the work of writing is a solitary one, it is sustained by dialogue. This dissertation is no exception, and could not have been written without the personal and professional support of many individuals over the past decade. My heartfelt gratitude goes to my primary advisor, Maria Gough, whose steadfastness, friendship and seemingly infinite patience allowed my graduate studies to take shape Stanford University and to continue at Harvard. In the seminars of Benjamin Buchloh I encountered an ethic of tireless and uncompromising inquiry that continues to challenge me to seek not only better answers but also better questions. With his warmth and goodwill, Robin Kelsey made me feel at home in an unfamiliar place and inspired me to become the kind of writer who could make others feel that way too. The research and writing of this dissertation was made possible by the generosity of the Harvard University Committee on General Scholarships and by the patience of staff members at numerous archives and museums in Russia, Europe and the United States. The warmth and hospitality of Dr. Mikhail Anikin and his wonderful family in St. Petersburg and Boris Baranov in Moscow made my time in Russia memorable and surprising in countless ways. Profs. John Bowlt and Kenneth Moss each entertained me in discussions that, unbeknownst to them, renewed the viability of this project at crucial moments. While I was writing the dissertation, Devin Fore’s work provided me with an exemplary model of how to think the Soviet avant-garde in the present, and he very graciously agreed to read it upon completion. I owe innumerable hours of enlightening conversation and debate to my friends and colleagues Eddie Vazquez, Jamie Nisbet, Dan Hackbarth, Christine Ho, Emily Brink, Iliana Cepero-Amador, Jim Thomas, Annie Ronan, Matt Jolly, Trevor Stark, Kevin Lotery, Hyewon Yoon, Jennifer Quick, Claire Grace, Taylor Walsh and Jordan Troeller. Without such exceptional vi interlocutors to help me clarify my thoughts on Lissitzky’s work and the broader tasks of art in the twentieth century, the best pages of this dissertation would surely have been duller. Of course, I owe my acquaintance with these individuals to Jane Blocker and Michael Gaudio, who were instrumental in my decision to embrace art history as a serious course of study. My deepest thanks go to my family, whose love and support has sustained me in this, as in ever other venture in my life. I have my parents, Ted Johnson and Elizabeth Hannafin- Johnson, to thank for an early and expansive exposure to the possibilities, challenges and rewards of a life lived in close proximity to art. My Brother Adam and sister Rennie have been my best friends since before I can remember, although Matt Neubert and Matt Torbenson were not far behind. Finally, everyday for the past three years Maggie Innes has made my life infinitely lighter and richer. vii List of Figures Figure 0.1. El Lissitzky and Mikhail Barshch, architects. Ogonek printing plant, Moscow. Photograph by author. Figure 0.2. Lazar’ Lissitzky, designer. Sikhes Khulin (Moscow: Nashe Iskusstvo, 1917). Lithograph with watercolor illuminations. State Tret’iakov Gallery, Moscow. Figure 0.3. Unknown photographer. Portrait of Lazar’ Lissitzky. 1912. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Figure 1.1. Lazar’ Lissitzky. Dust cover of Khad Gadya (Kiev: Kultur-Lige, 1919). Lithograph. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Figure 1.2. Lazar’ Lissitzky. Cover of Konstantin Bol’shakov, Solntse na izlete. (Moscow: Tsentrifuga, 1916). Lithograph. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Figure 1.3. El Lissitzky. Cover of Kazimir Malevich, “On the New Systems in Art: Statics and Speed.” 1919. Linoleum engraving. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Figure 1.4. From Kazimir Malevich, “On the New Systems in Art: Statics and Speed.” 1919. Lithograph. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Figure 1.5. Attributed to El Lissitzky. Untitled study for a mural. 1919. Watercolor on paper. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Figure 1.6. El Lissitzky and Kazimir Malevich. Program for a cycle of murals. 1919. Hand colored linoleum engraving. UNOVIS No. 1 insert. State Tret’iakov Gallery, Moscow. Figure 1.7. Vitebsk White Barracks, December 1919. Photograph. From UNOVIS No. 1 in a private collection, Moscow. Published in Aleksandra Shatskikh, Vitebsk: The Life of Art (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007). Figure 1.8. El Lissitzky. Cover for the brochure, “Committee on the Struggle against Unemployment.” 1919. Lithograph. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Figure 1.9. El Lissitzky. Artist’s colophon for the portfolio, Prouns. 1920-21. India ink, guache and pencil. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Figure 1.10. El Lissitzky. Artist’s colophon for the portfolio, Prouns. 1920-21 (verso). India ink, guache and pencil. Museum of Modern Art, New York. Figure 1.11. El Lissitzky. P1. 1920-21. Lithograph. Museum of Modern Art, New York. viii Figure 1.12. El Lissitzky in his Vitebsk studio, 1919-20. Photograph. Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Figure 1.13. Ilya Chashnik. Project for a tribune for a square in Smolensk. 1920. Guache, pencil and India ink on paper. State Tret’iakov Gallery, Moscow. Figure 1.14.