Title page

El Lissitzky

1923

Lithograph

Dallas Museum of Art

This suite of eight lithographs forms the First Kestner Portfolio, produced in 1923 for the Kestner Society, a progressive art society based in Hanover, Germany. Proun is an acronym for Proekt utverzhdeniia novogo (Project for the Affirmation of the New), a Russian phrase invented by Lissitzky. Much of Lissitzky's work from 1921 to 1923 revolved around the idea of the Proun, which dealt with the transition of a three-dimensional space to a two-dimensional surface and Lissitzky's complex spatial theories. The Proun compositions are architectural drafts in which Lissitzky explores his ideas on building and construction. "Proun begins