Matthew S. Witkovsky
Summary
Beginning around 1910, vanguard artists decried the isolation of creative activity within an academic citadel and
demanded that true art revolutionize, modernize daily life. New ideas in painting and sculpture demolished that
citadel from within—but they also spilled out into the wider world, merging enthusiastically with demands fashioned
by the industrial marketplace, the nascent mass media, and urban popular culture. Avant-Garde Art in Everyday Life
highlights the work of a handful of exceptionally influential people from those times. Piet Zwart (1885-1977) was
a Dutch designer who realized the utopian vision of De Stijl in items as humble and ubiquitous as biscuit boxes or
postage stamps. Karel Teige (1900-1951), the leader of the Czech avant-garde, transformed international ideas on film,
architecture, typography, and photography into brilliant book and journal designs. His compatriot Ladislav Sutnar
(1897-1976) used similar ideas to bring modernist “good design” to tableware, clothing, even children’s toys. Gustav
Klutsis (1895-1938) stood at the forefront of Soviet agitational posters, revolutionizing practices in photomontage for a
political cause. Lazar (El) Lissitzky (1890-1941) promoted revolutionary art and politics in Russia and Germany,
creating many of the most exciting book, poster, and exhibition designs of the 1920s and 1930s in both countries.
Similarly influential was German artist John Heartfield (1891-1968) who, like Klutsis, worked exclusively in
photomontage to design book covers, journal illustrations and agitational posters for the communist cause.
The Art Intitute of Chicago, 2011
9 1/2 x 12 1/2 in.; 160 pages
Hardcover $50.00
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