| Avant-garde artist Country: Latvia |
Gustav Klutsis was a Latvian artist and avant-garde pioneer, known for his contributions to the constructivist movement and the art of color photomontage. He was born in a village near the city of Ruiena in a Latvian family.
Klutsis studied at art schools in Valmiera and Riga from 1911 to 1915. He continued his education at the Drawing School of the Society for the Encouragement of the Arts in Petrograd (1915-1918) and later at the State Free Art Studios under the tutelage of K.A. Korovin, A.A. Pevzner, and K.S. Malevich (1918-1920). He also studied at Vkhutemas in Moscow (1920-1921).
Klutsis collaborated with the Institute of Artistic Culture (Inkhuk), the literary and artistic union "Left Front of the Arts" (LEF), and the society "Advocates of New Art" (UNOVIS). He was one of the founders of the association "October" (1928). Additionally, Klutsis taught at Vkhutemas from 1924 to 1930.
Among Klutsis's most famous works are "Red Man" (1918), "Dynamic City" (1919), "Axonometric Painting" (1920), "Let's Fulfill the Great Works Plan" (1930), and "USSR - the Strike Brigade of the Proletariat of the Whole World" (1931). His artistic legacy is preserved in the Tretyakov Gallery, the V.V. Mayakovsky Museum, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and various museums in Latvia.
In 1938, Gustav Klutsis was unjustly convicted and executed after a brief interrogation. Another version suggests that he died in a Central Asian labor camp on March 16, 1944. He was posthumously rehabilitated in 1956. His wife, V.N. Kulagina, preserved the artist's creative heritage.