1885–1953
○ Died
Creator of the most enduring symbol of revolutionary utopia: a tower that was never built
At the 1920 Berlin Dada Fair, George Grosz and John Heartfield held a placard declaring: 'Art is dead — Long live Tatlin's new machine art!'
A Russian and Soviet painter, architect, and stage designer who, alongside Kazimir Malevich, was one of the two central figures of the 1920s Soviet avant-garde. His Monument to the Third International (Tatlin's Tower, 1919–1920), a 400-metre spiralling iron-and-glass structure taller than the Eiffel Tower, designed to house the Comintern, was never built but became the defining symbol of revolutionary utopian architecture. His pre-revolutionary 'counter-reliefs' (1914–1916), three-dimensional constructions of wood, metal, and industrial materials, pioneered Constructivism and broke decisively with traditional pictorial space. Though sidelined under Socialist Realism from the 1930s, he was revived in the 1960s and his Tower remains one of the most recognised images of revolutionary art worldwide.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1911Began career as an icon painter in Moscow
- 1913Visited Picasso's studio in Paris; began producing relief constructions
- 1915Exhibited counter-reliefs at the Last Futurist Exhibition '0.10'
- 1919–1920Designed and exhibited model of the Monument to the Third International
- 1925–1927Professor at Kyiv Art Institute
- 1927–1930Professor at Vkhutemas in Moscow
- 1930–1932Built the Letatlin personal flying machine (ornithopter)
- 1948Dismissed as allegedly anti-communist but not repressed
Letatlin: Bird-Flight Research and Human-Powered Flight
From 1929 to 1932, Tatlin studied the structure and flight of birds to develop Letatlin, a human-powered, winged aircraft. He assembled researchers to examine bird wings and sometimes dissected them to understand their structure. Combining wood, metal, whalebone, and silk, the machine attempted to imitate natural structures in pursuit of more efficient flight. Three Letatlin aircraft were made, and only No. 3 survives. After passing through several aviation museums, it was held at the Central Museum of Aviation and Cosmonautics in Monino. Its sole attempted flight failed when a gust of wind broke a wing, and it was never used as an aircraft.