Initially trained as painter and graphic designer, the Russian artist Alexander Rodchenko was inspired to turn to photography by German Dadaist collage. As a member of the Productivist group in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution, he sought to make art that was socially and politically useful rather than purely theoretical or formal. Rodchenko believed his photographs of industrial urban environments, known for their dramatic angles and extreme close-ups, could revolutionize the way people saw the world, thereby helping to usher in the new era of the communist state.