Vladimir Tatlin
Born – Kharkovsk, Russia 1885
Died – Novodevichye, USSR 1953
Vladimir Tatlin was a painter, designer and maker of abstract constructions. He was the founder of Constructivism, a movement concerned with sculpture developed from collage as practised by the Cubists. From 1909-1911 Tatlin attended painting classes in Moscow and combined painting with his life as a merchant sailor, this undoubtedly provided the inspiration for The Sailor. In 1913-1914 he earned enough money as a folk musician to go to Paris where he worked in Picasso’s studio and was heavily influenced by the latter’s experiments in analytical Cubism. From these he derived his first abstract Constructions using diverse media and non-art materials. Moving out of an area of suggestion and illusion and into the world of real objects, time and space, he worked in close contact with other visual and literary artists. The political ideas resulting from the war in 1914 and the Revolution in 1917 had their effect on the artistic community. Many of them adopted the Bolshevik, Communist cause and Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument To The Third International was an elaborate, architectural sculpture which appropriated this as its theme. It remains a potent motif for the Constructivist movement which crystallized in 1922.
Masterpieces:
- Counter Relief
- Letatlin
Text: The A-Z of Art, Nicola Hodge and Libby Anson.
Books About vladimir tatlin
Tatlin's Tower: Monument to Revolution
Norbert Lynton
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Vladimir Tatlin and the Russian Avant-Garde
John Milner
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Vladimir Tatlin: Leben, Werk, Wirkung : ein internationales Symposium = Tatlin (German Edition)
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