El Lissitzky valuation
Russian artist and designer of the Proun works and of Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge.
El Lissitzky (1890–1941) was born Lazar Markovich Lissitzky in Pochinok, Russia, and trained as an architect in Darmstadt.
What a work by El Lissitzky is worth
Send photographs and whatever paperwork came with it. The first question is what the work actually is — edition or unique, when, and in what condition — because everything else follows from the answer. A valuation is free, made online from the photographs you send, and it commits you to nothing. We act for sellers across the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States.
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Bio
El Lissitzky (1890–1941) was born Lazar Markovich Lissitzky in Pochinok, Russia, and trained as an architect in Darmstadt. At Vitebsk he worked with Kazimir Malevich and made the poster Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge in 1919. His Proun works, a word he invented, set geometric forms floating in space between painting and architecture. In Germany from 1921, he carried Russian ideas to the West, with links to the Bauhaus and De Stijl. His typographic book For the Voice (1923) and his designs for Soviet exhibitions in Cologne and elsewhere were highly influential.
What comes to market is lithographs, including the Kestner portfolio of Prouns from 1923, along with books, photographs and designs. Paintings are very scarce, and the field has been faked, so provenance is essential for anything unique. Prints should be checked for the correct paper, the edition and any signature, and for fading, foxing and trimming.
At a glance
- Born
- 10 November 1890, Pochinok
- Died
- 30 December 1941, Moscow
- Movement
- Constructivism
Whitebank Fine Art is an art advisory and gallery, not an auction house, and is not affiliated with any auction house or with the artist, their estate or their representatives. This page describes the range we advise on. Nothing here is investment advice.
