HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin ( – 31 May 1953) was a Russian and
Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
painter, architect and stage-designer. Tatlin achieved fame as the architect who designed The Monument to the Third International, more commonly known as Tatlin's Tower, which he began in 1919. Honour, H. and Fleming, J. (2009) ''A World History of Art''. 7th edn. London: Laurence King Publishing, p. 819. With Kazimir Malevich he was one of the two most important figures in the
Soviet avant-garde The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
art movement of the 1920s, and he later became an important artist in the Constructivist movement.


Biography

Vladimir Yevgrafovich Tatlin was born in Moscow, Russian Empire. His father, Yevgraf Nikoforovich Tatlin was a hereditary nobleman from
Oryol Oryol ( rus, Орёл, p=ɐˈrʲɵl, lit. ''eagle''), also transliterated as Orel or Oriol, is a city and the administrative center of Oryol Oblast situated on the Oka River, approximately south-southwest of Moscow. It is part of the Central Fe ...
, a mechanical engineer graduated from the Technological Institute in
St.Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
and employed by the Moscow-Brest Railway in Moscow. His mother, Nadezhda Nikolaevna Tatlina (Bart) was a poet who sympathized with the Narodnaya Volya revolutionary movement. After she died in 1887, his father married again and resettled to Kharkiv. His father, by whom he lived after having failed to study in Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture died in 1904, so young Vladimir had to interrupt his studies at the Kharkov Arts School and to leave for
Odessa Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...
to become a merchant sea cadet. According to his own memories, sea and distant lands gave him both means of subsistence and source of inspiration; he sailed all across the Black Sea and also to Egypt. In 1905 he started and in 1910 successfully completed his studies at N.Selivestrov Penza Art School in Penza. During the summer vacations he traveled to Moscow and St.Petersburg to participate in various art events. In 1911 he resettled to Moscow to live by his uncle and began his art career as an icon painter. He also sang in Ukrainian and was a professional musician-
bandurist A banduryst ( uk, бандури́ст) is a person who plays the Ukrainian plucked string instrument known as the bandura. Types of performers There are a number of different types of bandurist who differ in their particular choice of instrume ...
, and performed as such abroad. Tatlin became familiar with the work of Pablo Picasso during a trip to Paris in 1913. Tatlin achieved fame as the architect who designed the huge Monument to the Third International, also known as Tatlin's Tower. Tatlin began to design it in 1919. The monument was to be a tall tower made of iron, glass and steel which would have dwarfed the
Eiffel Tower The Eiffel Tower ( ; french: links=yes, tour Eiffel ) is a wrought-iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. It is named after the engineer Gustave Eiffel, whose company designed and built the tower. Locally nicknamed "' ...
in Paris (the Monument to the Third International was a third taller at 400 meters high). Inside the iron-and-steel structure of twin spirals, the design envisaged three building blocks, covered with glass windows, which would rotate at different speeds (the first one, a cube, once a year; the second one, a pyramid, once a month; the third one, a cylinder, once a day). The entire building was to house the executive and legislature of the Comintern, and be a central area for the creation and dissemination of propaganda. For financial and practical reasons, however, the tower was never built. Janson, H.W. (1995) ''History of Art''. 5th edn. Revised and expanded by Anthony F. Janson. London: Thames & Hudson, p. 820. Singh, Iona (2012) ''Aesthetic World in the Future - chapter from Color, Facture, Art & Design''. Hampshire: Zero Books, p. 104-128. Tatlin was also regarded as a progenitor of Soviet post-Revolutionary Constructivist art with his pre-Revolutionary counter-reliefs, three-dimensional constructions made of wood and metal, some placed in corners (corner counter-reliefs) and others more conventionally. Tatlin conceived these sculptures in order to question the traditional ideas of art, though he did not regard himself as a Constructivist and objected to many of the movement's ideas. Later prominent constructivists included
Varvara Stepanova Varvara Fyodorovna Stepanova (russian: Варва́ра Фёдоровна Степа́нова; – May 20, 1958) was a Russian artist. With her husband Alexander Rodchenko, she was associated with the Constructivist branch of the Russian avant ...
, Alexander Rodchenko, Manuel Rendón Seminario, Joaquín Torres García,
László Moholy-Nagy László Moholy-Nagy (; ; born László Weisz; July 20, 1895 – November 24, 1946) was a Hungarian painter and photographer as well as a professor in the Bauhaus school. He was highly influenced by constructivism and a strong advocate of the i ...
,
Antoine Pevsner Antoine Pevsner (12 April 1962) was a Russian-born sculptor and the older brother of Alexii Pevsner and Naum Gabo. Both Antoine and Naum are considered pioneers of twentieth-century sculpture. Biography Pevsner was born as Natan Borisovich P ...
and
Naum Gabo Naum Gabo, born Naum Neemia Pevsner (23 August 1977) (Hebrew: נחום נחמיה פבזנר), was an influential sculptor, theorist, and key figure in Russia's post-Revolution avant-garde and the subsequent development of twentieth-century scul ...
. Although colleagues at the beginning of their careers, Tatlin and Malevich quarrelled fiercely and publicly at the time of the 0.10 Exhibition in 1915 (long before the birth of Constructivism), also called "the last futurist exhibition", apparently over the ' suprematist' works Malevich exhibited there. This led Malevich to develop his ideas further in the city of Vitebsk, where he found a school called UNOVIS (Champions of the new art). Tatlin also dedicated himself to the study of clothes, and various objects, and flight, culminating in the construction of Letatlin personal flying apparatus. In the year of 1930 he taught in Kyiv where one of his students was
Joseph Karakis Joseph Karakis (or ''Iosif Karakys''; uk, Йо́сип Ю́лійович Кара́кіс; 29 May 1902 – 23 February 1988) was a Ukrainian Soviet architect, urban planner, painter and teacher, and one of the most prolific Ukraininan Kyiv ...
. From the 1930s Tatlin worked for different theatres in Moscow and during the Great Patriotic War, in Gorkiy. He also worked for and with many Soviet art organizations, including the department of Fine Arts (IZO) of
Narkompros The People's Commissariat for Education (or Narkompros; russian: Народный комиссариат просвещения, Наркомпрос, directly translated as the "People's Commissariat for Enlightenment") was the Soviet agency charge ...
. In 1948 he was heavily criticized for his allegedly anti-communist stance and lost his job, but was not repressed. Tatlin died in 1953 in Moscow and was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery.


Gallery of works

File:Female Model by Vladimir Tatlin 1913.jpg, Tatlin, 1913, ''Female Model / Натурщица'', oil on canvas File:A Life for the Tsar (Tatlin) 05.jpg, Tatlin 1913, ''scene design'' for the play 'A Life for the Tsar' File:Counter-relief by V.Tatlin (1916, GTG) 02 by shakko.JPG, Tatlin, 1916, ''Counter-relief'', sculpture of several materials File:Tatlin's Tower maket 1919 year.jpg, Tatlin, 1919–20, '' Tatlin's Tower'', official title: ''Monument to the Third International'', the design was never built File:Tatlin 2.jpg, Tatlin, 1919–20, recently made copy of ''Tatlin's tower, Monument to the Third International'', a later model File:Vladimir Tatlin's dress design.jpg, Tatlin, 1920s, ''dress-design'' File:2012-01 Neue Tretjakow-Galerie 08 anagoria.JPG, Tatlin, 1923–24, ''Costumes'' File:Stockholm Moderna Museet Collection Vladimir Tatlin Letatlin, 1930-32 (5200746581).jpg, Tatlin, 1929-1931: ''Letatlin № 1.'', sculpture; human-powered ornithopter File:Letatlin No 3 at Central Air Force Museum.JPG, Tatlin, 1930–1932, ''Letatlin № 3.'', sculpture; human-powered ornithopter File:Tyrsa Window Cleaner and Portrait of V. Tatlin.jpg, Tatlin, c. 1942, ''Window Cleaner and Portrait of V.'', brush on paper


Notes


References

*


External links

*
Tatlin Playing The Bandura. Special Project of the Library of Ukrainian Art.

Exhibition of Russian-Soviet artist Vladimir Tatlin in Basel — Tatlin’s “new art for a new world”

Photographs of Tatlin and his assistants constructing the first model for the monument to the Third International, Petrograd, 1920
Canadian Centre for Architecture The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA; french: Centre Canadien d'Architecture) is a museum of architecture and research centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 1920, rue Baile (1920, Baile Street), between rue Fort (Fort Street ...

digitized items
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tatlin, Vladimir 1885 births 1953 deaths Artists from Moscow People from Moscow Governorate Russian avant-garde Architects from Moscow Constructivist architects Russian painters Russian male painters Russian sculptors Ukrainian sculptors Ukrainian male sculptors Bandurists Soviet architects Soviet painters Constructivism (art) 20th-century Russian male artists Burials at Novodevichy Cemetery 20th-century Russian painters Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture alumni Ukrainian avant-garde