El Lissitzky [Lazar Markovich Lisitsky]
Proun 3Acirca 1920

On view:

Broad Contemporary Art Museum, floor 3

Abstract vertical painting with geometric shapes — rods, planes, and a large divided circle in powder blue and gray — arranged over a pale cream background

Artist or Maker: El Lissitzky [Lazar Markovich Lisitsky]
Russia, 1890-1941
Title: Proun 3A
Place Made: Russia
Date Made: circa 1920
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 28 x 23 in. (71.12 x 58.42 cm)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by Mr. and Mrs. David E. Bright and the David E. Bright Bequest
Accession Number: 86.3
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: Modern Art
Curatorial Notes: An acronym for “Project for the Affirmation of the New,” Proun referred to El Lissitzky’s desire to merge art and life—a process that he believed would occur in a new, utopian society. Inspired by the idealist fervor of the Russian Revolution of 1917, the abstract, avant-garde compositions of the Proun series were conceived by Lissitzky as “stations” that combined two-dimensional painting and three-dimensional architecture. Proun 3A rejects traditional standards of perspective: its various geometric elements appear to hover weightlessly and lack any sense of relative scale. The absence of a horizon line suggests that the composition stretches to infinity.

Wall label, 2021.
Provenance: The artist (1898-1967), Paris and Brussels; [Galerie Le Centaure, Brussels]; sold in 1932 to E. L. T. Mesens (1903-1971), London; sold in 1957 to William (1919-1996) and Noma (1916-2006) Copley; [sold at Sotheby’s Parke-Bernet, New York May 17, 1978, Sale No. 4124, Lot 70]; to LACMA.
Selected Bibliography: Benson, Timothy O. Hans Richter: Encounters. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2013.

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