Our Notes & References

Lovely production of the Russian avant-garde, with cover and more than 50 illustrations designed by Natalia Goncharova.

First edition, limited to only 325 copies – this one in pristine condition and elegantly bound by the Miguet couple, active from the 1950s to early 80s and praised for their “high-quality binding in the service of the book… [and] productions [which] range from the purest classic to the most modern original creations” (Flety, Dictionnaire des relieurs français). In 1994 the famous Wittockiana library in Brussels arranged a major retrospective exhibition of their work.

This copy is one of 300 copies on Arches, this one being un-numbered.

Reproduced entirely by lithography, the book combines Rubakin’s poems, written in an elaborately stylised script, and Goncharova’s full-page lithographs and vignettes of various sizes and complexity. Lithography was popular amongst Russian poets at the time to honestly convey their inner feelings and a more immediate, spontaneous type of artistic expression. Perhaps for the same reason, Rubakin devised this entirely original script, resembling a distorted form of Cyrilic, possibly to express the feelings of displacement of emigrée life and his sense of loss after the death of his wife in 1918, to whom the poems are dedicated. Goncharova’s daring illustrations perfectly accompany Rubakin’s poems to convey the turbulent atmosphere of the early twentieth century and of urban life more specifically.

Gocnharova’s full-page cityscapes and backdrops here “complement the text providing insights into the scope of her work up to 1920, ranging from Neo-Primitivism to Futurism to theatrical lyricism” (Ryan p. 62). Each pair of facing printed pages is followed by two empty pages, creating a rhythmic experience that accentuates her contrast-heavy drawings.

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 was primarily active as a stage and costume designer for the Ballets Russes, both in Paris and internationally.

Rubakin (1889-1979), poet and journalist, was arrested in 1906 for distribution of revolutionary literature. A year later he emigrated from Russia and settled in France in 1908. He regularly submitted articles to such magazines as ‘New Magazine for Everyone’, ‘Russian Treasure’, ‘Russian Thought’ etc. In 1944 Rubakin returned back to the USSR.

Provenance

From the estate of Jacques Dauchez (1932-2012; solicitor and legal adviser based in Paris, bibliophile and art collector, counting Matisse and Dubuffet among his customers).

Bibliography

Hellyer 457; MoMA 292; Bibliotheca Wittockiana. 1994. Colette et Jean-Paul Miguet: 99 reliures  Bibliotheca Wittockiana, 17 septembre au 20 octobre 1994. Éditions Technorama; Fléty, Julien. 1988. Dictionnaire des relieurs français ayant exercé de 1800 à nos jours ; (suivi d’un) Guide pratique des relieurs, doreurs, marbreurs et restaurateurs contemporains. Ed. Technorama; Ryan, David. 2001. Letter Perfect: The Art of Modernist Typography, 1896-1953. Pomegranate.