Our Notes & References

“To a dear comrade from the front [or avant-garde] lines, 1919, 11.XI”: a fine inscription by Punin, “one of the key figures of the avant garde” (Zykov, our translation here and elsewhere).

“A rare gem of avant garde children’s illustration” (Molok): OCLC locates only one copy (Princeton, missing the lower wrapper), to which we can add “a lesser copy acquired by the Rothschild foundation” (Princeton cataloguing), the “not very good” Ratz copy in Russia (idem) and just a few in Russian institutions (RGB, RNB, Pushkin Museum); we couldn’t trace any copies at auctions in the West and three in Russia in recent decades.

Continuing the tradition of Russian futurist books from the pre-revolutionary years, artist and educator Petr Miturich (1887–1956) illustrated this Skaz gramotnym detiam, one of his earliest and most experimental book illustration projects. He employed here a distinctive hatching technique in black ink, enhanced with generous patches of gold.

The author of the tale, but also a renowned art historian and Anna Akhmatova’s husband, Nikolai Punin (1888–1953), praised Miturich’s artistic skill: “His brush has a high sensitivity, marking even the most remote and smallest fluctuations of his artistic sensibilities, like a seismograph, […] its charm lies in a peculiar, dry femininity”; “he understands form as a kind of vegetative force, a living and developing organism” (quoted by Chegodaeva).

A close friend of Velimir Khlebnikov, one of the leaders of Russian futurism (and husband to Khlebnikov’s sister, Vera), Miturich in fact was actively engaged in researching the wave principle of motion in nature and, based on these studies, worked on the design of different vehicles. “Beginning in 1921, he invented a few wave propulsion devices and received patents for nine of them” (Strizhak). One such invention was a “propulsion device for ships in the form of a flexible fish body.” The present edition already reflects his attempts in rendering subjects in a biomorphic and kinetic manner — the children in his illustrations resemble molecules scattered across futurist, dynamic backgrounds.

Equally unusual, the tale takes an unorthodox approach to celebrating the new Soviet era. It follows a group of children from a “Northern Soviet commune” searching for a Christmas tree on Christmas Eve. In the forest, they encounter a mysterious creature resembling an old man, who encourages them to turn their attention instead to the big star in the sky—a symbol of something new and ultimately more meaningful. Prominent art historian Iurii Gerchiuk cites this edition as a bold experiment in children’s books, placing it alongside El Lissitzky’s famous Tale of Two Squares (1922), the only suprematist book for children.

Contemporary Soviet critics, however, were not so enthusiastic. A review in issue #2 of Kniga i revoliutsiia [Book and Revolution] (1920) praised the high production quality and the successful imitation of a child’s drawing style but criticised the story for lacking a clear political message: “If this story was written for propaganda purposes, then what age group did the author have in mind? It seems he does not know much about children—this text might suit 6–8-year-olds, but children of that age do not yet respond well to political agitation.”

After creating this edition and only a handful of other book illustrations, Miturich went on to teach at VKhUTEMAS (Higher Art and Technical Studios), the major centre of Soviet avant-garde, from 1923 to 1930, establishing himself as one of the leading draughtsmen of the Moscow school of graphic arts in the 1920s–40s.

This copy is warmly inscribed by Punin, “to a dear comrade from the front [or avant-garde] lines, 1919, 18.XI,” possibly addressed to a fellow artist or cultural worker involved in reforming Russian art and its institutions. Between late 1918 and March 1919, Punin was the chief editor and an active contributor to the newspaper Iskusstvo komunny [Art of the Commune], along with Vladimir Mayakovsky, Kazimir Malevich, and Natan Altman. From 1918 to 1921, he headed the Petrograd Department of Fine Arts at the People’s Commissariat of Education and was a deputy of the Petrograd Soviet. As of spring 1918, he also served as commissar of the Russian Museum and, from June 1918, of the Hermitage, reorganising the museums’ exhibitions (Zykov).

In 1921, Punin was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the so-called “Petrograd militant organisation.” Around sixty others arrested alongside him, including the poet Nikolai Gumilev, were executed. Punin was released a month later, and his “romance with the revolution ended” at that point, as he later remarked (Zykov). From 1921 to 1934, he continued working as a curator at the Russian Museum. After the Second World War, he was accused of promoting “corrupt” Western art, arrested in 1949, and sentenced to ten years in the Gulag, where he died of a heart attack in 1953.

Provenance

Gift inscription by Punin on upper wrapper: “Dorogomu tovarishchiu s peredovykh pozitsii. 1919, 11.XI”; Private European collection.

Bibliography

Chegodaeva M. A. Zapovednyi mir Miturichei-Khlebnikovykh, Moskva, Agraf, 2004; Gerchiuk, Iurii. Quoted by Valerii Blinov. “Knizhki-malyshki i khudozhniki-velikany” // Zhurnal Antikvariat. Predmety iskusstva i kollektsionirovaniia. 2003, 7-8 (9); Molok Iu., L. Kravchenko, N. Krachkevich. Staraia Detskaia Knizhka 1900-1930. Iz sobraniia Marka Ratsa, Moskva, 1997.

Strizhak, Aleksandr. Biomorfnoe formoobrazovanie obektov prikladnogo iskusstva i dizaina vtoroi poloviny XIX – nachala XXI vekov. Dissertatsiia na soiskanie uchenoi stepeni kandidata iskusstvovedeniia, RGU im. A. N. Kosygina, 2022; Triemia. Kniga i revoliutsiia. Ezhemesiachnyi kritiko-bibliograficheskii zhurnal, 1920, #2, p. 82; Zykov P. P. “Punin Nikolai Nikolaevich”. Entiklopediia russkogo avangarda (online).