The term “Constructivism” is one of the most unstable in the modernist lexicon. Broadly speaking, it describes sculpture that is made by joining discrete masses into open-form, usually abstract compositions. It differs from traditional sculptural methods which require the artist to cut away (as in carving) or build up (as in modeling) his materials so that they form a self-contained, monolithic mass. The Constructivist method was initiated by Picasso in the open-form sculptures he produced in the years immediately preceding the First World War. Extending into three dimensions the formal premises of his paintings of the period, Picasso used cardboard, sheet metal, and other materials to represent a particular object—the most famous is his Guitar of 1911-12—by reconstituting its elements into a series of open, overlapping planes. As a result, a new role was assigned to space in denning our perception of sculptural volume. Picasso’s innovations in this field were taken up by scores of later sculptors, the most distinguished among them being Julio González, David Smith, Anthony Caro, and Mark di Suvero.

There is another Constructivist tradition, however, which tracks a different artistic course. It, too, grew out of Picasso’s sculpture, but evolved in Russia in the Revolutionary period largely under the leadership of Vladimir Tatlin. On a trip to Paris in 1913, Tatlin saw some of Picasso’s constructed reliefs in the artist’s studio, and on returning home immediately set to work in developing his own version of this new sculptural genre. He thus laid the groundwork