El Lissitzky, or Lazar Lissitzky was born in 1890 and died in 1941 and worked as an architect, a painter, a typographer and a designer. He grew up in the same hometown as Marc Chagall, Vitebsk, and studied architecture at the Polytechnic school in Darmstadt from 1909 to 1914. El Lissitzky worked as an architect in Moscow after he completed his studies, and also began to illustrate children's books in 1917 in a style greatly influenced by Chagall. El Lissitzky became a professor at the art school in Vitebsk in 1919 and worked alongside Malevich. While teaching he began a series of abstract paintings which he called Prouns because they combined both painting and architecture. In addition Lissitzky designed books, and innovative typography techniques. El Lissitzky's works, which are mostly gouaches, currently run for values between $15,000 and $150,000.
