Our Notes & References

Kuzmin’s only children’s book, here in the rare version with original hand-colouring, one of 125 copies only, out of a total edition of 1,000 (this one #106). Contains a device in water-colour by Turova not in the regular edition.

Kuzmin was one of Russia’s leading Symbolist poets and a pioneer in modern homoerotic literature. One of the two poems was dedicated to Lili Brik, Vladimir Mayakovsky’s mistress.

‘Segodnia’ [Today] was the world’s first avant-garde children’s book publisher, formed by a brief artist’s collective of the same name who met in Vera Ermolaeva’s apartment until she was appointed rector of the Art Academy in Vitebsk. With the aim of “filling a gap in children’s literature, almost non-existent [at that time]” (Karpov), the artists produced innovative children’s books in the first post-revolutionary years in Russia. The group was active in 1918–19, a period marked by significant shortages of paper and printing technology. The artists resorted to semi-manual methods, employing traditional techniques of engraving and lithography. Their small-format series — just eight pages including wrappers — were printed on a hand press; the illustrations were cut in linoleum and printed from the original blocks.

In each edition, 125 copies were hand-numbered and intended for hand-colouring; these carried an indication of this tirage de tête on the verso of the title and omitted the printed price on the lower wrapper, which bore the cubo-futurist publishing mark of Segodnia designed by Ermolaeva. The coloured examples appear to have been sold at almost six times the standard price (Karpov).

This publication was illustrated by Ekaterina Turova, an associate of Ermolaeva and of the artist Mikhail Le-Dantiu in the Futurist group ‘Beskrovnoe ubiistvo’ [Bloodless Murder], an anarchic and absurdist collective active between 1914 and 1918 which anticipated the later work of the OBERIU group of Russian Futurists.

Provenance

Private NYC collection.

Bibliography

MoMA 258; Rozanov 3130; Karpov, Dmitrii. “Artel khudozhnikov ‘Segodnia'” // Antikvariat. Predmety iskusstva i kollektsionirovaniia. Dec. 2003.