Book Illustration
  The Russian Avant-Garde Book 1910-1934 by Jared Ash, Nina Gurianova, Gerald Janecek, Margit Rowell, Deborah Wye, Natalia Goncharova, Kasimir Malevich, El Lissitzky, Alexander Rodchenko. The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2002. Hardcover, clothbound, 304 pages.
Russian avant-garde books made between 1910 and 1934 reflect a vivid and tumultuous period in that nation's history that had ramifications for art, society, and politics. The early books, with their variously sized pages of coarse paper, illustrations entwined with printed, hand-written, and stamped texts, and provocative covers, were intended to shock academic conventions and bourgeois sensibilities. After the 1917 Revolution, books appeared with optimistic designs and photomontage meant to reach the masses and symbolize a rational, machine-led future. Later books showcased modern Soviet architecture and industry in the service of the government's agenda. Major artists adopted the book format during these two decades. They include Natalia Goncharova, El Lissitzky, Kazimir Malevich, Aleksandr Rodchenko, Olga Rozanova, the Stenberg brothers, Varvara Stepanova, and others. These artists often collaborated with poets, who created their own transrational language to accompany the imaginative illustrations. Three major artistic movements, Futurism, Suprematism, and Constructivism, that developed during this period in painting and sculpture also found their echo in the book format. This publication accompanied an exhibition of Russian avant-garde books at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. All of the books in the exhibition and this publication are part of a gift to the Museum from The Judith Rothschild Foundation. (editorial review from Amazon)
  From the Silver Age to Stalin: Russian Children's Book Illustration. By Michael Patrick Hearn. Paperback, 32 pages. Publisher: Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, 2003.
"We are privileged to host the exhibition of this extraordinary material, surveying Russian children's book illustration from the very end of the nineteenth century to the outbreak of World War II. It is all the more appropriate, since one of the central figures, Vladimir Lebedev, was so influential to Eric Carle's training as a graphic designer. In Russian terms, the exhibition covers the last years of rule under the tsars to the zenith of Stalin's ruthless power. As guest curator Michael Patrick Hearn observes, the beginning of this era marked a turning point in Russian cultural history when books and art began to be created and produced indigenously. Mindful of international currents, Russian book design embraced foreign sources while bringing its own aesthetic into play" ( From "Acknowledgments," by H. Nichols B. Clark).
  Stories for Little Comrades: Revolutionary Artists and the Making of Early Soviet Children's Books. By Evgeni Stein. Hardcover, 214 pages. Publisher: Univ of Washington Pr; First Edition edition, 1999. English.
Provides some fascinating information about the subject and some stimulating insights into how revolutionary ideas about communal living, mechanisation, industrialisation, and international solidarity were expressed in the form and content of such literature."--Burlington Magazine, May 2001 |
