Die Kunstismen / Les Ismes de l'art / The Isms of Art
With art history’s notorious “isms” as its protagonists, the facsimile of this 1920s publication brings back a pioneering and original take on avant-garde art. Published as a trilingual English, French
and German edition, the work is considered a seminal polemic on early twentieth-century art by two key figures of the time.
Carefully put together by Hans Arp and El Lissitzky, “Die Kunstismen” illustrates the diversity of modern art movements from 1914 to 1924, using paintings, sculptures and drawings by a range of international artists to represent each -ism. Lissitzky’s exceptional graphic design epitomizes the new approach to art and sets the scene for the movements and accompanying artworks.
With art history’s notorious “isms” as its protagonists, the facsimile of this 1920s publication brings back a pioneering and original take on avant-garde art. Published as a trilingual English, French
and German edition, the work is considered a seminal polemic on early twentieth-century art by two key figures of the time.
Carefully put together by Hans Arp and El Lissitzky, “Die Kunstismen” illustrates the diversity of modern art movements from 1914 to 1924, using paintings, sculptures and drawings by a range of international artists to represent each -ism. Lissitzky’s exceptional graphic design epitomizes the new approach to art and sets the scene for the movements and accompanying artworks.
"The typography of Die Kunstismen … makes it one of the strongest and most exciting statements of twentieth-century book design."
– Type & Typography: Highlights from the Matrix (anthology)
"Both ironic and analytic, it is like a (fictitious) exhibition catalogue or tourist guide, a brochure ... introducing an exotic, but closed, finished (artistic) territory to the eager beholder of the time."
– ARS 47 (2014), no. 2
Originally published: 1925
Facsimile edition (rare title): 1990
Reprint: 2026