Rodchenko, Alexander. Schaaktafel, 1925: Bouwplaat, schaal 1:7 = Chess table, 1925 : paper model, scale 1:7.

Thoth Publishing, 1989. [Not a photography book but Rodchenko was also a photographer.] New in original shrink-wrap. Museum store price label on back of item. Includes 1:7 paper model of Rodchenko's design for the Great International Exhibition for Applied and Industrial Arts in Paris, 1925. Includes booklet with drawings of some of the pieces so that these can be reconstructed. Also comes with chess pieces which enable playing a game of mini-chess. Scarce.

Alexander Rodchenko (1891–1956) was a pioneering Russian avant-garde artist, photographer, sculptor, and graphic designer who served as a central founder of the Constructivist movement. Born in St. Petersburg and educated at the Kazan School of Art, he initially gained prominence through abstract painting, sculpture, and graphic design alongside his lifelong partner and collaborator, Varvara Stepanova. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution, Rodchenko famously declared "the end of painting" in 1921 to embrace functional art that could actively shape Soviet society, turning his creative energy toward photomontage, typography, theatrical design, and advertising campaigns with poet Vladimir Mayakovsky. By the mid-1920s, he took up handheld photography, revolutionizing the medium through dramatic foreshortening, radical worm's-eye and bird's-eye camera angles, high-contrast lighting, and dynamic geometric compositions. Despite facing official artistic restrictions as Socialist Realism took hold in the 1930s, Rodchenko's visionary approach to photography, Soviet photojournalism, and visual communication remains a cornerstone of modern graphic design and 20th-century photographic history.