How an art-loving chauffeur saved Russian revolution in paintings

They are masterpieces of Russian Constructivism which George Costakis began to collect when the rest of the Soviet Union - and the world - had shunned them.

Without them, the new exhibition on Aleksandr Rodchenko and Lyubov Popova, two of the most important Russian avant-garde artists, would scarcely have been possible.

Mr Costakis, who was born in Russia before the revolution to Greek parents, discovered his first Constructivist paintings in a Moscow studio in 1946.

He became friends with Varvara Stepanova, Rodchenko's wife, tracked down friends of the major artist Kasimir Malevich, and was the principal saviour of works by Popova, who became his favourite artist. When he left to live in Greece in 1977, Mr Costakis gave dozens of the best ones to the Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow.

Now they are being reunited in Britain for the first time, along with 60 more from the collection his family houses at the State Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki, Greece.

Mr Costakis died in 1990, aged 76. His daughter Aliki, 69, from Athens, said she was looking forward to seeing the show.

For years, she and her three siblings lived with her father's collection in the two-room communal flat they shared in Moscow.

"He didn't have a special education but he started to collect very early. He knew a lot about Old Masters to begin with," she said.

"The avant-garde works cost nothing when he started to collect them but he knew he was discovering something unique and unknown for the world."

No one else wanted the bold works that he retrieved from attics, studios and basements in the Soviet capital and in Leningrad. But, said Miss Costakis: "Now I think they are very proud to have this collection at the Tretyakov."

Constructivism came into being in the wake of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Rejecting "art for art's sake", its proponents believed they could use art and design to help develop a new, just society. Their abstract works experimented with the use of industrial materials, and were important in developing techniques such as photomontage.

The exhibition will include Rodchenko's posters for films including Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin. Rodchenko, born in St Petersburg in 1891, advocated the incorporation of art into everyday life. He died in 1956.

Popova (1899-1924) who was born in Ivanovskoye, near Moscow, worked in poster, book, fabric and theatre design, as well as teaching.

Curator Dr Margarita Tupitsyn added: "Costakis saved a lot of work by Popova that probably would have been destroyed because no museums were interested in the Sixties and Seventies. With Rodchenko, Costakis picked up work that most people would think was crazy."

Rodchenko And Popova: Defining Constructivism opens on Thursday and runs until 17 May.