PEVSNERAuthor of

many architectural guides

Antoine Pevsner was born in 1886, in Russia.

He and his two brothers, Alexei and Naum, were interested in science and specialized in engineering in schooL

Pevsner studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kiev and in St.

Petersburg

In 1912 Pevsner went to Paris

He saw the cubist art of Pablo

Picasso, Georges Braque, Modigliani and

Alexander Archipenko

They became disenchanted once it

was required that art lose its

autonomy and be used as a tool to

propagate political philosophy

They published their position in the

1920 Realistic Manifesto .

Constructivism was

an artistic and architectural movement

in Russia from 1919 onward which

dismissed "pure" art in favour of an art

used as an instrument for social

purposes

The Communist government begun to suppress all free artistic expression as "formalism," artists had the choice of either conforming to official policy or leaving. Pevsner left.

He went to Berlin, where he turned to sculpture and made his first construction

In 1924 he settled in Paris

His techniques:

He began to use plastics which he cut

and fixed to a surface to form the effect

of a high relief.

Light and shadow play an important role

in his works.

He used ribbing on sheet metal to

emphasize linear movement, as

in Construction for an Airport.

Later, Pevsner had his works cast in

bronze