Concerned with the need for analytical-documentary photo series, he often shot his subjects from odd angles—usually high above or down below—to shock the viewer and to postpone recognition.

In 1910, Rodchenko began studies under Nicolai Fechin and Georgii Medvedev at the Kazan Art School, where he met Varvara Stepanova, whom he later married.

After 1914, he continued his artistic training at the Stroganov Institute in Moscow, where he created his first abstract drawings, influenced by the Suprematism of Kazimir Malevich, in 1915.

Rodchenko's work was heavily influenced by Cubism and Futurism, as well as by Malevich's Suprematist compositions, which featured geometric forms deployed against a white background.

[4] In 1921 he became a member of the Productivist group, with Stepanova and Aleksei Gan, which advocated the incorporation of art into everyday life.

Impressed by the photomontage of the German Dadaists, Rodchenko began his own experiments in the medium, first employing found images in 1923, and from 1924 on, shooting his own photographs as well.

In 1924, Rodchenko produced what is likely his most famous poster, an advertisement for the Lengiz Publishing House sometimes titled "Books", which features a young woman with a cupped hand shouting "книги по всем отраслям знания" (Books in all branches of knowledge), printed in modernist typography.

His images eliminated unnecessary detail, emphasized dynamic diagonal composition, and were concerned with the placement and movement of objects in space.

Rodchenko joined the October Group of artists in 1928 but was expelled three years later, charged with "formalism", an accusation first raised in the pages of Sovetskoe Foto in 1928.

Osip Brik, a well-established author and art critic who was similarly entrenched in the politics and evolving art-culture, offered what was scathing criticism at the time for the photographer’s series on The Building on Miasnitskaia Street and Pine Trees in Pushkino, saying, “one should not depict an isolated building or tree, which may be beautiful but which will be a painting, will be aesthetic.”[9]  Similarly to Brik, Sergei Tretyakov attacked Aleksandr Rodchenko’s stylized work, saying, “Instead of exploring the whole range of utilitarian goals confronting photography, Rodchenko is only interested in its aesthetic function.

Rodchenko later proclaimed, "I reduced painting to its logical conclusion and exhibited three canvases: red, blue, and yellow.