Students of VKhUTEMAS/VKhUTEIN (1920–1930)

Anastasia Akhtyrko (Russian, 1902–1968;
student at VKhUTEMAS from 1920 to 1924)
Design for portfolio cover: Distsipliny VKhUTEMAS
(The Disciplines of VKhUTEMAS), 1920
Gouache, ink and pencil, 9 1/2 x 7 3/4” (24 x 19.6 cm)

The album for which this cover was designed consists of “satirical illustrations of eight propaedeutic courses that were being taught in the Painting Department at VKhUTEMAS, beginning in 1920.” [Anna Bokov, Avant-Garde as Method: Vkhutemas and the Pedagogy of Space, 1920–1930 (Zurich: Park Books, 2020), p. 104]

VKhUTEMAS (Higher State Artistic and Technical Workshops) was a school for artists founded in Moscow in 1920, renamed VKhUTEIN (Higher State Artistic and Technical Institute) in 1927, and dissolved in 1930. Despite chronological and pedagogical parallels with the German Bauhaus (1919–1933), a major difference between VKhUTEMAS/VKhUTEIN and the Bauhaus was scale. During its fourteen-year existence, the Bauhaus had some 30 teachers and 1,500 students, while during its ten-year existence, VKhUTEMAS/VKhUTEIN had over 100 faculty members and 2,500 students. It is hardly surprising, then, that many Soviet avant-garde artists in the Merrill C. Berman Collection were either teachers or students of VKhUTEMAS/VKhUTEIN. Among the school’s well-known teachers were Gustav Klutsis, El Lissitzky, Dmitri Moor, and Aleksandr Rodchenko. We direct you today to the mature work of some of the school’s former students:

Aleksandr Deineka (Russian, 1899–1969)
Poster: Rabotat’, stroit’ i ne nyt’! (Work, Build, and Don’t Complain!), 1933
Lithograph, 40 x 29 3/4” (101.6 x 75.6 cm)

After his demobilization from the Red Army in 1921, Deineka enrolled at VKhUTEMAS, where he studied in the Graphics and Printing Department. Click here for Deineka’s artist page.

Nikolai Dolgorukov (Russian, 1902–1980)
Poster: Transportnik, vooruzhaias’ tekhnicheskimi znaniiami, boris’ za rekonstruktsiiu transporta (Transport Worker, Armed with Technical Skill, Strives to Reconstruct Transportation), 1931
Lithograph, 41 1/16 x 28 5/8” (104.3 x 72.7 cm)

 In 1928, Dolgorukov enrolled at VKhUTEIN, studying drawing under the noted book illustrator Lev Bruni (1894–1948) and poster design with the preeminent poster artist Dmitrii Moor (1883–1946). Click here for Dolgorukov’s artist page.

Vasilii Nikolaevich Elkin (Russian, 1897–1991)
Poster: Da zdravstvuet Krasnaia Armiia—vooruzhennyi otriad proletarskoi revoliutsii! (Long live the Red Army—the armed detachment of the proletarian revolution!), 1932
Lithograph, 51 3/8 x 33 7/8” (130.5 x 86 cm)

Between 1923 and 1928, Elkin studied at VKhUTEMAS/VKhUTEIN under the graphic artist Vladimir Favorsky (1886–1964). Click here for Elkin’s artist page.

Nikolai Sedelnikov (Russian, 1905–1994)
Maquette: Chelovek sozdan dlia schast’ia
(A Man is Created for Happiness), 1927
Cut-and-pasted printed paper, gouache, and ink on paper,
13 1/16 x 9 1/2" (33 x 34.2 cm)

From 1924 to 1926, and again in 1930, Sedelnikov studied in the Graphics and Printing Department of VKhUTEMAS/VKhUTEIN. Click here for Sedelnikov’s artist page.

Elena Semenova (Russian, 1898–1986).
Maquette: Natural Resources of U.R.S.S. [sic], 1926
Pencil, metallic paint, and gouache on paper, 9 7/8 x 6 7/8” (25 x 17.4 cm)

In 1920, Semenova began studying sculpture at VKhUTEMAS under Boris Korolev (1885–1963) and Anton Lavinsky (1893–1968). In 1922, she transferred to the department of architecture under Nikolai Ladovsky, Nikolai Dokuchaev, and Vladimir Krinsky. In 1923, under the pseudonym “Vkhutemaska,” Semenova contributed a scathing critique of architectural instruction at VKhUTEMAS: “Levaia metafizika” (Left Metaphysics), Lef, no. 4 (1924): 219–220, in which she wrote: “Any tram stop, house, or kiosk designed in a new and constructive way is more valuable for students than all these abstract and pseudo-Productivist exercises.” Click here for Semenova’s artist page.

Solomon Telingater (Russian, 1903–1969)
Poster: Poligrafiheskaia tekhnika: Ezhemesiachnyi massovyi zhurnal p o voprosam tekhniki i obmenu opytom (Printing Technology: Monthly Journal on Technical Issues and Exchange of Experience), c. 1932–34
Letterpress, 18 1/8 x 13 1/8 x 22 1/8” (46 x 33 x 56 cm)

In 1920, Telingater was awarded a scholarship from Narkompros to study at VKhUTEMAS, where he enrolled briefly between 1920 and 1921. While at VKhUTEMAS, he studied under the famous Russian graphic artists Vladimir Favorsky (1886–1964) and Nikolai Piskarev (1892–1959), who instilled in him the idea of a book as an integral artistic creation. Click here for Telingater’s artist page.

Konstantin Vialov (Russian, 1900–1976)
Poster: Shestaia chast’ mira (A Sixth Part of the World),
a film by Dziga Vertov, 1926
Lithograph, 42 1/2 x 28 1/4” (107.9 x 71.7 cm)

Vialov studied under the most prominent representatives of avant-garde trends in Russia, including Vladimir Tatlin (1885–1953), Aristarkh Lentulov (1882–1943), and Vasilii Kandinsky (1866–1944). He graduated from the VKhUTEMAS with honors in 1924. Click here for Vialov’s artist page.

El Lissitzky (Russian, 1890–1941)
Book: Arkhitektura VKhUTEMAS. Raboty arkhitekturnogo fakul'teta VKhUTEMAS, 1920–1927
(Architecture: Works by the Architecture Faculty of VKhUTEMAS, 1920–1927)
Moscow: Izdanie VKhUTEMASa, 1927
Letterpress, 9 9/16 x 6 5/16” (24.3 x 16 cm)

June 11, 2026