El Lissitzky · Public domain

Lissitzky began his career illustrating Yiddish children's books to promote Jewish culture, then moved into the heart of the Russian avant-garde, helping develop Suprematism alongside Kazimir Malevich and creating his own geometric series, Proun. He carried his art into typography, photomontage and exhibition design, reshaping how modernist work was displayed across Europe, and taught for most of his life, spreading those ideas to successive generations of students. On his deathbed in 1941 he was still working, producing a Soviet poster rallying resistance to Nazi Germany.