This book is published to accompany the first major American retrospective of Rodchenko's work, at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, in the summer of 1998. The essays in Aleksandr Rodchenko explore both phases of his career, drawing out the formal ideas that he developed as well as the social and artistic context in which he moved. The book's plate section, reproducing over 300 works carefully selected from collections in Russia and throughout the West, for the first time presents a full and coherent overview of his diverse achievement. An illustrated chronology outlines the story of the artist's life.