Aleksander Rodchenko as a graphic designer

Russian artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer.

Born: December 5, 1891
St. Petersburg
Died:December 3, 1956 (aged 64)
Moscow
Nationality: Russian
Movement: Constructivism

Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko (Russian: Александр Михайлович Родченко, 5 December [O.S. 23 November] 1891 – December 3, 1956) was a Russian artist, sculptor, photographer and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism and Russian design; he was married to the artist Varvara Stepanova.

Rodchenko was one of the most versatile Constructivist and Productivist artists to emerge after the Russian Revolution. He worked as a painter and graphic designer before turning to photomontage and photography. His photography was socially engaged, formally innovative, and opposed to a painterly aesthetic. Concerned with the need for analytical-documentary photo series, he often shot his subjects from odd angles—usually high above or below—to shock the viewer and to postpone recognition. He wrote: "One has to take several different shots of a subject, from different points of view and in different situations, as if one examined it in the round rather than looked through the same key-hole again and again."

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