Our Notes & References

Innovative, colourful depiction of the advancements of the collective farming for Soviet children – a fine, fresh example of the first edition.

The book is especially remarkable for its full-page chromolithographs, exempt of any word. They are meant to illustrate a short poem about the animals of a jolly and fast-developing Soviet farmyard, written by the renowned Russian playwright Evgenii Shvarts (1896-1958). The illustrations strike us for their use of bright contrasting colours and staggered perspective depicting radiant scenes of cows being milked, horses with their foals, pigs and sheep in their studs. A recent student of Vkhutemas, the artist Teodor Pevzner (1904-41) skillfully combines various avant-garde approaches to the pictorial form employing linear, even suprematist images of wide-open stables and farmhouses with almost expressionist depictions of animals and humans, such as those in the scene with a turbulent ox or with children playing with their pets.

By the time of publication, Pevzner was working an experimental lithographic workshop in Moscow (1930-1934).

Scarce: Worldcat locates copies in four libraries only (Princeton (2 copies), University of Chicago, McGill University Library, Los Angeles Public Library), ad we could trace only two copies selling at auction in recent decades.