Aleksandr Rodchenko

Born 1891 in St. Petersburg, Russia; died 1956 in Moscow, Soviet Union

From Wikipedia:

Aleksander Mikhailovich Rodchenko (Russian: Алекса́ндр Миха́йлович Ро́дченко; 5 December [O.S. 23 November] 1891 – 3 December 1956) was a Russian and Soviet artist, sculptor, photographer, and graphic designer. He was one of the founders of constructivism and Russian design; he was married to the artist Varvara Stepanova.

Rodchenko was one of the most versatile constructivist and productivist artists to emerge after the Russian Revolution. He worked as a painter and graphic designer before turning to photomontage and photography. His photography was socially engaged, formally innovative, and opposed to a painterly aesthetic. Concerned with the need for analytical-documentary photo series, he often shot his subjects from odd angles—usually high above or down below—to shock the viewer and to postpone recognition. He wrote: "One has to take several different shots of a subject, from different points of view and in different situations, as if one examined it in the round rather than looked through the same key-hole again and again."

From artnet.com:

Alexander Rodchenko was a founding member of Russian Constructivism—the avant-garde movement characterized by unembellished abstraction— along with Vladimir Tatlin. He was known for his politically motivated photography, posters, paintings, and sculpture. “The avant-garde of Communist culture is obligated to show how and what needs to be photographed,” he said of the medium. “What to shoot—is something every photo group knows but how to shoot—only a few know.”Born on November 23, 1891 in St. Petersburg, Russia, he studied drawing and painting at the Kazan School of Fine Arts and architecture at the Stroganov School of Applied Art. An early influence came from Kazimir Malevich, whose Suprematist style contributed to Rodchenko’s adoption of an austere aesthetic and use of materials. In the late 1920s, he joined the October group, with members Diego Rivera, Gustav Klutsis, and Sergei Eisenstein, furthering his commitment to creating art for the working classes. Rodchenko died on December 3, 1956 in Moscow, Soviet Union. Today, his works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, and the Art Institute of Chicago, among others.