Our Notes & References

A superb example of this fine production of the Russian avant-garde, this copy being the num. 4 of the tirage de tête of only 25 copies on china paper, preserved in a binding by Monique Mathieu, M. Mélin and H. Jolis.

The book is particularly remarkable for the wealth of Goncharova’s illustrations (more than 50), and it is entirely printed in lithograph.

Goncharova here addresses modern subjects such as workers, machines and factories and provides a dynamic urban background to Rubakin’s text. The poems are printed in facsimile manuscript which was popular amongst Russian poets at the time as they felt it honestly conveyed their inner feelings and a more immediate and spontaneous type of artistic expression. The cityscapes and backdrops provide “insights into the scope of her work up to 1920, ranging from Neo-Primitivism to Futurism to theatrical lyricism” (Ryan p. 62), the latter being undoubtedly linked to her work as a stage designer for the Ballets Russes.

Together with her companion Mikhail Larionov, Natalia Goncharova (1881-1962) left Russia in 1915 and permanently settled in Paris in 1917. After training and exhibiting widely in Western Europe, she had developed a highly original style that incorporated Russian iconography, folk culture (lubki), as well as cubofuturism and abstract “rayonism,” a tendency she pursued together with Larionov. Building on her successful career as a Russian avant-garde painter, she became very active as a stage and costume designer for the Ballets Russes, both in Paris and internationally.

Alexander Rubakin (1889-1979), poet and journalist, was arrested in 1906 for distributing revolutionary literature. A year later he emigrated from Russia and settled in France where he regularly submitted articles to such magazines as ‘New Magazine for Everyone’, ‘Russian Treasure’, ‘Russian Though’ etc. In 1944 Rubakin returned back to the USSR.

Bibliography

Hellyer 457; MoMA 292; Ryan, Letter Perfect: The Art of Modernist Typography.