 Lissitzky 's entire career was laced with the belief that the artist could be an agent for change , later summarized with his edict , " das zielbewußte Schaffen " ( goal @-@ oriented creation ) . Lissitzky , of Lithuanian Jewish оrigin , began his career illustrating Yiddish children 's books in an effort to promote Jewish culture in Russia , a country that was undergoing massive change at the time and that had just repealed its antisemitic laws . When only 15 he started teaching , a duty he would maintain for most of his life . Over the years , he taught in a variety of positions , schools , and artistic media , spreading and exchanging ideas . He took this ethic with him when he worked with Malevich in heading the suprematist art group UNOVIS , when he developed a variant suprematist series of his own , Proun , and further still in 1921 , when he took up a job as the Russian cultural ambassador to Weimar Germany , working with and influencing important figures of the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements during his stay . In his remaining years he brought significant innovation and change to typography , exhibition design , photomontage , and book design , producing critically respected works and winning international acclaim for his exhibition design . This continued until his deathbed , where in 1941 he produced one of his last works – a Soviet propaganda poster rallying the people to construct more tanks for the fight against Nazi Germany . In 2014 , the heirs of the artist , in collaboration with Van abbemuseum and the leading worldwide scholars , the Lissitzky foundation was established , to preserve the artist 's legacy and preparing a catalogue raisonné of the artist oeuvre . 
