Suprematicheskii skaz pro dva kvadrata v 6ti postroikakah [“Of Two Squares- Suprematist Story of Two Squares In Six Constructions”]. Text in Russian

LISSITZKY, ELIEZER

Skify

Berlin

1922

Cover, dedication “To All, All Children”, title and six interior illustrations by EL LISSITZKY. Printed in red and black

Busch-Reisinger Museum Catalogue, El Lissitzky (1987) no. 1922/7 and fig. 15a-l (illustrated); Lissitzky-Küppers, El Lissitzy: Life Letters Texts (1980), pl. 80-91; Museum of Modern Art Catalogue , The Russian Avant-Garde Book 1910-1934 (2002) no.404, pp.153-5 (illustrated)

Lissitzky’s move to Berlin in 1921 gave him access to superior printing technology and expertise which enabled him to produce Of Two Squares. His conversion from Constructivism to Suprematism, with its absolute pure geometrical abstraction did not dim his passion for typographical work. The illustrations and layouts in Of Two Squares embody many of the same visual devices deployed by Lissitzky’s earlier Prouns. The book is a fable about the cooperation of a black and red square in the dispersal of obsolete chaos and the establishment of a new order. It is aimed at children who are encouraged to reenact the action with paper, rods and blocks. “The action unrolls like a film. The words move within the fields of force of the figures as they act: these are squares. Universal and specifically plastic forces are bodies brought forth typoraphically” (El Lissitzky, Typographical Facts)