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George Grosz, An Autobiography. Translated by Nora Hodges. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998, pp. 178-180—
Constructivism had many followers in Russia. [Among the most prominent] was a certain [Vladimir] Tatlin, a peculiar Russian child of nature. Tatlin came from a wealthy family and had traveled in Germany before the First World War. At that time he had been a member of a famous balalaika band [in which he played the bandura] and choir [which sang in Ukrainian], which had played before Kaiser Wilhelm at court. He then became a painter and also studied at a school of technology. He got known when he exhibited his big project for a monument in Moscow [intended for construction near the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul] …he himself would never have called it a monument, that word was too old-fashioned and romantic, he called it the “Tower of the Third International” [at full scale, it would have been one third taller than the Eiffel Tower]. The [initial] model of this whole powerful construction was about ten feet high, consisting of all sorts of rods and bars put together at odd angles.…
…[Sometime later] I went to see Tatlin once more. He lived in a small, old, dilapidated apartment. Some of the chickens that he kept slept in his bed. They laid eggs in one corner. We drank tea, and Tatlin chatted about Berlin, Wertheim's department store, and his performance at court. There was a completely rusted wire mattress leaning on the wall behind him with a few sleeping chickens sitting on it, their heads tucked under their wings. They furnished the perfect frame to dear Tatlin as he started to play his homemade balalaika. Darkness appeared through the curtainless window; most panes had been replaced with little squares of wood. We suddenly seemed surrounded by the melancholy humor of a book by [Russian writer Nikolai] Gogol. Tatlin was no longer the ultramodern constructivist; he was a piece of genuine, old Russia. I never saw him again, nor did I ever hear of him or the formerly much discussed “Tatlinism.” He is said to have died alone, and forgotten [in 1953].•
• According to a Wikipedia biographical text, “In 1948 he was heavily criticized for his allegedly anti-communist stance and lost his job, but was not repressed.”
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George Grosz, An Autobiography. Translated by Nora Hodges. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998—
I remember [American literary critic] Edmund Wilson best coming down the steps in his beach coat; like all fat people, he looked most impressive viewed from below…Wilson is more a lobster person than a fish person: you have to use a nut cracker to get to the meat. (p. 305)
Below Vladimir Tatlin, Counter-relief (1916). Photo: Shakko, Wikimedia Commons.
