When Alexander Rodchenko began taking photographs in 1924 he was in his early thirties and already known as a painter of severe abstracts and maker of constructions and photomontages. He produced many of his most memorable photographs during his first few years with a camera: his wife, Varvara Stepanova, smiling with a cigarette gripped between her teeth; his mother, holding folded spectacles up to one eye; and several portraits of Mayakovsky. (One Mayakovsky must be earlier than others as his head is not shaved; according to a note about her father by his daughter, Rodchenko himself started the shaving trend in 1920. Other members of LEF - Left Front of Art - later followed suit.)

LRB 24 April 2008 | PDF Download