Bidspirit auction | El Lissitzky

El Lissitzky - 1890 - 1941. Composition with Wooden Statue, 1930, Gelatin silver print, 23.7x17.8 cm. Provenance: Jen Lissitzky Archive, the artist’s son. This photograph of a wooden sculpture was taken by El Lissitzky in the early 1930s. It is made in the best tradition of avant-garde foreshortening. The composition is based on the combination of the geometry of light with the three-dimensional object of the exotic statuette. The dynamic of the light rays falling on different planes creates the effect of the figure's detachment from the earthly and its dynamic tension in space. The wooden sculpture photographed by El Lissitzky has a long and very interesting history. It begins in the 80s of the 19th century, when the father of Sophie Küppers-Lissitzky (Schneider), the artist's wife, brought this statuette from the islands of Oceania. In the 1890s, Dr Christian Schneider was a military doctor on the ship Gneisenau. As well as treating the crew, he also treated the local population. He was respected by them and often received gifts from them. During his service he amassed a very valuable oriental collection. Much of this collection, mostly from the islands of Oceania, was donated to the Ethnographic Museum in Munich in the 1920s. This wooden figurine from his collection, which Sophie liked very much, remained in the family. It was brought to Moscow from Germany by Sophie in 1927. El Lissitzky died of tuberculosis in Moscow in 1941. During the deportation of Sophie (as an ethnic German) and Jen from Moscow to Novosibirsk in 1943, the statuette was left with the family of their friend, the eminent film director Sergei Eisenstein, along with other items that Sophie managed to save. In 1947 it was sent to Novosibirsk by Jen Lissitzky (who had come to Moscow without permission) (from Sophie's memoirs: Ingeborg Prior, (Sophie's Legacy”). This wooden statuette, of considerable value in itself, is now in the family. After Jen Lissitzky emigrated to Germany in 1989, this photograph was in the possession of Jen Lissitzky, first in Germany and later at his estate in Andalusia (Spain), which he bought in 2000 and where he died in 2020. There is also his grave and a monument. In 2023, along with Ian's entire archive. In 2023, together with Jen's entire archive, this photograph was taken to Israel, where Sergei Lissitzky, Jen Lissitzky's only son and El Lissitzky's only grandson, has lived since 2007. *Sergei Mikhailovich Eisenstein (1898 –1948). Was a Soviet film director,   screenwriter,   film editor and film theorist. He was a pioneer in the theory and practice of montage. Battleship Potemkin is widely considered one of the greatest films of all time.  Doron Polak, International Artist Museum