Alexander Rodchenko Photographs

Alexander Rodchenko (1891-1956) was one of the great figures of early 20th-century avant-garde art, and also one of its most versatile practitioners. After gaining an international reputation as a painter, sculptor, and graphic artist, Rodchenko turned to photography in the early 1920s, convinced that it would become the artistic medium of his era.

This exhibition traces the development of Rodchenko's photography over the following two decades, a period when he created many classic works of Russian and world photography. Pioneering a new vocabulary of bold and unusual camera positions, severe foreshortenings of perspective, and close-up views of surprising details, Rodchenko's photography balanced formal concerns with an interest in the social and political life of the Soviet Union. Organized by the Moscow House of Photography, the exhibition features some 120 original prints and photomontages from 1924-1943.