About Two Squares: A Suprematist Tale of Two Squares in Six Constructions

First published in 1922 in post-revolutionary Russia, a revolutionary children’s book by Russian avant-garde artist El Lissitzky (1890–1941) is available once more, for collectors and art and design enthusiasts. Imagination-stretching, radically simple, and yet beautifully sophisticated, About Two Squares tells the story of two squares that take on the mission of rebuilding the world. Inspired by Kazimir Malevich’s suprematist vision of a nonobjective art, About Two Squares stirred up the European art world with its publication in Theo van Doesburg’s avant-garde art journal, De Stijl, and redefined what an illustrated book could be. Left wonderfully open-ended, the book’s final words—“and then . . .”—encourage young readers to reinvent the world for themselves.