Page 64 - Studio International - November 1968

Kunstismen). and several other artists for whom
Musical Instruments as Revolutionary Russian Lissitzky and his German wife. Sophie, tried to
Works of Art arrange exhibitions and find buyers. He was im­
patient only of people who borrowed ideas and then
A fully illustrated book showing the Victoria promoted themselves as originators. and of any form
and Albert Museum's collection of El Lissitzky by Sophie Lissitzky-Kuppers. With an of cultural nationalism-of self-conscious German­
elaborately decorated musical instruments introduction by Herbert Read and texts by and on ness among Germans and equally of emigre Russians
which are almost always expressions of fine Lissitzky. 407 pages with 278 illustrations, 100 in trading on their exile status ('What have these
Russians got to do with Russia? The real truth is that
craftsmanship. They will be of interest to the colour. Thames & Hudson. 8 gns. you can meet them in any city in Europe except in
art historian as many of the instruments are It nearly didn't happen, any of it. When Lissitzky was Moscow'). 111ness and Russia's economic situation
dated and thus provide helpful evidence for a baby his father went off to America and managed necessarily limited his output, but there is no mistak­
the student of ornament and decorative to start a busine\s. Once everything was going well ing his tremendous talent and the eager generosity
technique. (Large Picture Book No. 37) he sent for his wife and child to join him out there. with which he applied it at every opportunity. The
52s. 6d. (by post 54s.) But Mrs L .. in the depths of Smolensk province, only gain he had from it was his personal satisfaction.
It is the chief virtue of this book that this creative
West Cambridgeshire thought it best to consult the Rabbi before embarking fullness comes across. There· are lots of illustrations
on this great voyage, and he advised her to stay at
The first of a series devoted to the County of home and get her husband to come back. And so it of every aspect of his work. There is also an affec­
Cambridge, this volume contains the official was. tionate. informative and entirely sensible text by his
Thus Lazar ('El') Lissitzky narrowly missed growing
report of the Royal Commission on up in America and becoming a ... what? The Lis­ wife. quoting many fetters. Finally. there is a useful
collection of texts by Lissitzky (several of them not
Historical Monuments (England) with the sitzky we know, the Lissitzky at long last made previously accessible) and by others on Lissitzky. It
list of the monuments selected as especially decently available to us by means of this book, appears that in 1960 the Russians put on a compre­
worthy of preservation; a discussion of their needed Russia. the Russian revolution and all its hensive exhibition of his work; perhaps we shall one
local and national significance; an illustrated works, and probably also Europe, to be the great day be able to credit Lissitzky with the great posthu­
inventory; an armorial of heraldry; a art-and-design man he undoubtedly was. America mous achievement of being the thin end of a wedge
glossary of archaeological, architectural and might have given him a comparable feeling for the with which the Russians knocked the chains off their
heraldic terms and a map of parishes. new-might indeed have enabled him to express it all own achievement in modern art.
'This grand inventory Qf our national heritage too easily-but Russia gave him the moral imperative. Norbert Lynton
He was not, of course. the greatest artist of the
of architecture is the most admirable of Russian movement. Neither was he the greatest Postscript. The English edition is a translation from
the German. published in Dresden last year. The job
official reports.' THE GUARDIAN architect, though his exhibition structures and en­ has been well done, fluently and brightly, by Helene
120s. (by post 124s. 6d.) vironmental compositions, as well as the famous Aldwinckle and Mary Whittall. I should like to point
English Desks and Bureaux honourable mention in any survey of modern archi­ to one inaccuracy, of particular int�rest to British
Wolkenbilgel design, should assure him of an
readers. In the characteristic Lissitzky sentence,
A guide which illustrates and describes the tecture (he gets none in Hitchcock's Pelican volume. 'Against the background of jellyfish-like German
more important pieces of English furniture which generally ignores the Russian contribution). non-objective painting. the clear geometry of
in the Museum that were constructed for the He was probably the greatest. certainly the most Moholy and Peris stands out in relief, 'Peris' is a
purpose of reading or writing. The items influential. typographer of his generation. Most im­ retention of the German genitive form of 'Peri', i.e.
range from the small port:.ible desks of the portant. he was the chief stirrer-up of the cultural Laszlo Peri. or Peter Peri as he was known in this
16th century to the huge library writing tables melting-pot which was Central Europe in the 1 920s. country. A mistranslation occurs in Herbert Read's
It was his multifarious involvement that made him so
preface and I should like to correct it before it
of the 18th and early 19th centuries. fruitful then and so refreshing now. He was an catches on. He translated Wolkenbilgel as 'sky
12s. 6d. (by post 13s. 2d.) instinctive radical. pressing by all means for a new stirrup'. Here bilge/ must equal Bilgeleisen or
American Studio Pottery world of objective. socially advantageous thinking smoothing iron (bugeln. to iron). Lissitzky's sky­
and making. But he was not at all narrow and worked
scraper is a horizontal structure on tall legs, so
In 1966 the Victoria and Albert Museum with and for Schwitters (Tell him that of all the instead of using the German word for skyscraper.
organized a travelling exhibition of artists in Germany I like him the best'). Arp (who let Wo/kenkratzer (literally. cloud scratcher), he in­
American Studio Pottery which represented him down badly over their collaboration on the book. vented for it the term 'cloud iron' which fits it well.
the work of twenty contemporary American
potters. This booklet illustrates one example
of each potter's work from the exhibition. Whilst the Futurists-and. in particular. Boccioni­
8s. 6d. (by post 8s. IOd.) Futurist facts did produce some memorable works. they were not
Guide to London Museums great painters. Their real significance, it seems to me,
was historical and symptomatic rather than artistic.
and Galleries It is thus a mistake to give their paintings a rather
The new edition of this fully illustrated Futurist Art and Theory by Marianne W. Martin. 288 uncritical 'old master treatment' and to neglect what
pp with 233 illustrations. 4 in colour. The Clarendon
they stood for.
booklet shows at a glance the scope and Press, Oxford University Press. 6 gns. The Futurists were like sponges absorbing ideas
content of the Museums and Galleries from an enormous range of sources and their formu­
dealing with all subjects, in the London area. It is nearly sixty years since the publication of the first lation of these ideas in a series of brilliant manifestos
Particular emphasis is placed on the great Futurist manifesto; it is thus none too soon for the was sufficient to provoke artists all over Europe to
national institutions. appearance of the first full-length study in English of define their own art in opposition to or in aweement
4s. 6d. (by post 5s. 2d.) this movement. Mrs Martin has produced what will with them. In the years 191 1-14. these manifestos,
undoubtedly be an indispensable reference book for supplemented by exhibitions and lectures, penetrated
Free lists of titles ( please spec ify subject / s) are those studying this period; she has made hitherto all over Europe as far as Russia. for theirs was the
available from Her Majesty's Stationery O ffi ce, inaccessible sources available for the English reader first artistic movement to make full use of modern
(
P6A SI), Atlantic House, Ho/born Viaduct, and has woven them into an exhaustively detailed. methods of publicity and above all. of a press eager
London E.C.J jupicious text. for 'shocks' (just as they were. I believe, the first
[;]III�� The success of the book will lie in the author's pro­ painters to have their names up in lights outside their
Governl)lent publications can be purchased from the vision of clear. undistorted factual material for future gallery). Wherever their ideas thus penetrated they
provoked reaction. It is significant that this reaction
interpretative studies of thB movement. for whilst she
Government Bookshops in London (post orders to has cleared up many misapprehensions about the frequently took the form of painters experimenting
P.O. Box, 569, S.E.1), Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast,
Manchester, Birmingham and Bristol, or through 'first Futurist movement' (notably the idea that it was with Futurist techniques and then, within a very short
any bookseller inherently Fascist). these are not replaced by any time. turning to non-figurative forms of expression.
consistent interpretation of the movement as a whole. It is for such reasons that the Futurist movement is
222