Constructivism Table of Contents Introduction References & Edit History Quick Facts & Related Topics Images Read Next 10 Modernist Art Movements Discover 7 Surprising Uses for Mummies 9 of the World’s Deadliest Spiders How Fast Is the World’s Fastest Human? 8 of the World’s Most-Remote Islands Titanosaurs: 8 of the World's Biggest Dinosaurs Poker Hands Ranked Why Was Nazi Germany Called the Third Reich? Contents Constructivism art Actions Cite verified Cite While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Select Citation Style MLA APA Chicago Manual of Style Copy Citation Share Share Share to social media Facebook Twitter URL https://www.britannica.com/art/Constructivism-art Give Feedback External Websites Feedback Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Feedback Type Select a type (Required) Factual Correction Spelling/Grammar Correction Link Correction Additional Information Other Your Feedback Submit Feedback Thank you for your feedback Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. External Websites World Wide Arts Resources - Constructivism Print Cite verified Cite While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Select Citation Style MLA APA Chicago Manual of Style Copy Citation Share Share Share to social media Facebook Twitter URL https://www.britannica.com/art/Constructivism-art Feedback External Websites Feedback Corrections? Updates? Omissions? Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). Feedback Type Select a type (Required) Factual Correction Spelling/Grammar Correction Link Correction Additional Information Other Your Feedback Submit Feedback Thank you for your feedback Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. External Websites World Wide Arts Resources - Constructivism Also known as: Konstruktivizm Written and fact-checked by The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica Article History Table of Contents Tatlin, Vladimir: Monument to the Third International See all media Russian: Konstruktivizm (Show more) Key People: Joaquin Torres-Garcia Naum Gabo Antoine Pevsner (Show more) Related Topics: art (Show more) See all related content → Constructivism , Russian artistic and architectural movement that was first influenced by Cubism and Futurism and is generally considered to have been initiated in 1913 with the “painting reliefs”?abstract geometric constructions?of Vladimir Tatlin . The expatriate Russian sculptors Antoine Pevsner and Naum Gabo joined Tatlin and his followers in Moscow, and upon publication of their jointly written Realist Manifesto in 1920 they became the spokesmen of the movement. It is from the manifesto that the name Constructivism was derived; one of the directives that it contained was “to construct” art. Because of their admiration for machines and technology, functionalism, and modern industrial materials such as plastic, steel, and glass, members of the movement were also called artist-engineers. scale model of Vladimir Tatlin's Monument to the Third International Scale model of Vladimir Tatlin's 1920 Monument to the Third International by Jeremy Dixon, 32.8 feet (10 metres) high, 2011; shown in the courtyard of the Royal Academy London. (more) Other important figures associated with Constructivism were Alexander Rodchenko and El Lissitzky . Soviet opposition to the Constructivists’ aesthetic radicalism resulted in the group’s dispersion. Tatlin and Rodchenko remained in the Soviet Union , but Gabo and Pevsner went first to Germany and then to Paris , where they influenced the Abstraction-Creation group with Constructivist theory, and later in the 1930s Gabo spread Constructivism to England and in the 1940s to the United States . Lissitzky’s combination of Constructivism and Suprematism influenced the de Stijl artists and architects whom he met in Berlin, as well as the Hungarian Laszlo Moholy-Nagy , who was a professor at the Bauhaus . In both Dessau and Chicago , where (because of Nazi interference) the New Bauhaus was established in 1937, Moholy-Nagy disseminated Constructivist principles. More From Britannica Western sculpture: Constructivism and Dada This article was most recently revised and updated by Naomi Blumberg .