Karlis Johansons

Karlis Johansons
Kārlis Johansons
Johansons, c. 1922
Born	(1890-01-16)16 January 1890 Cēsis, Kreis Wenden, Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire
Died	18 October 1929(1929-10-18) (aged 39) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Nationality	Latvian
Education	Riga Municipal Art School, Latvia; Penza School of Arts, Russia
Known for	Latvian-Soviet avant-garde Constructivism art, proto-tensegrity, architecture
Notable work	Self-tensile constructions
Movement	Constructivism, Bauhaus, Abstract, Surrealism

Karlis Johansson (16 January 1890 – 18 October 1929) was a Latvian-Soviet avant-garde artist.

In 1914 he joined the "Green Flower" (in Latvian: "Zaļā puķe", in Russian: "Зелёный цветок") association of avant-garde artists (besides Johansons, there were also Aleksandrs Drēviņš, Voldemārs Tone (lv) and Konrāds Ubāns.  Through the era of the Russian Revolution he lived in Moscow where he was involved in the Russian constructivist movement.  In 1921, "self-tensile constructions" were exhibited, which became globally known as "tensegrity" in the 1950s as the topical concept was popularized by Richard Buckminster Fuller and sculptor Kenneth Snelson's work.^[1]