Through selected rare books and periodicals, sets of lithographs, and archival holdings, the Russian modernist collections document pivotal moments in the history of Russian and Soviet art. They contain full runs of the Symbolist journals Mir iskusstva (World of art) and Zolotoe runo (Golden fleece), a strong representation of Futurist books by the poets and artists Khlebnikov, Kruchenykh, Goncharova, and Larionov, and nearly all of the printed work of the great Suprematist, Malevich.

Typed and handwritten lecture notes from Kandinsky's years at the Bauhaus (1925–1933) chronicle Russia's relation to the West, as do Lissitzky's Yiddish and Constructivist book designs, and his archive containing photographs of his exhibition designs and 106 letters on personal letterhead to his wife, Sophie Küppers. Complete holdings of the illustrated publication SSSR na stroike (USSR in construction) feature cover designs by Lissitzky, Rodchenko, Stepanova, and Telingater. Like the Soviet photographic albums and architectural journals in the collection, they provide visual histories of the Stalinist period.