Pioneer with a Bugle

1930 · Photograph

Can I see it?

Not on view at present

Where is “Pioneer with a Bugle” now? Collection: National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. Not on view at present. Checked September 29, 2026.

National Gallery of Art

Washington, D.C., United States

It belongs to the collection, but is not on display at present.

Checked: 11 days ago
In this state since: Aug 19, 2026
Source: The museum

On the map Museum page

Details

Accession number: 2004.122.5

What it shows

Man

In the catalog

Photographs Gelatin silver print Modernism 20th century Russian

Sources

National Gallery of Art
Image: National Gallery of Art — © the artist or rights holder

In the life of Aleksandr Rodchenko

The whole life

1920–1930
Professor at VKhUTEMAS/VKhUTEIN
For ten years Rodchenko teaches in the woodworking and metalworking faculties (merged into the Dermetfak in 1928), training students to design multifunctional objects for everyday life and public buildings, expressive through construction rather than ornament.
1923–1928
LEF and Novy LEF with Mayakovsky
From 1923 to 1928 Rodchenko works closely with Mayakovsky — photographing him several times and designing and laying out LEF and Novy LEF, the Constructivists' publications; many of his photographs serve as their covers.
1928
First accused of formalism
The charge of “formalism” that would dog Rodchenko is first raised in 1928 in the pages of Sovetskoe Foto. By some accounts, that same year he joins the October group.
1928
“Ten Years of Soviet Photography” exhibition
Rodchenko takes part in the Moscow exhibition “Ten Years of Soviet Photography”. From the same year he regularly sends work to photographic salons in the USA, France, Spain, Britain, Czechoslovakia and elsewhere.
18 May 1929 – 7 July 1929
Took part in: Film und Foto
1931
October group show at the House of the Press, and a backlash
At the October group's exhibition at the House of the Press in Moscow, Rodchenko shows “Pioneer Girl”, “Pioneer with a Trumpet” and the series “Vakhtan Sawmill”; the pictures draw devastating criticism and charges of formalism and of refusing to adapt to the tasks of “proletarian photography”. By some accounts, he is expelled from the group in 1931.