Our Notes & References

‘Ford craze’ in the young USSR – with a striking suprematist cover by “Kazimir Malevich’s closest associate [and] his ‘only student'” (Suetin’s wife Anna Leporskaia, our translation here and elsewhere).

First edition, scarce: OCLC locates only three copies in the US (NYPL, Princeton and Johns Hopkins University; to which the MoMA copy should be added) and two in France only.

Ford i fordizm was inspired by newspaper articles and essays about Henry Ford, as well as the Russian translation of Ford’s memoirs, My Life and Work (1922), which went through five editions in the Soviet Union by the end of 1925. Genkel chose a first-person narrative “for better flow and clarity” (preface), and his narrator vividly describes his strong impressions of Ford’s manufacturing empire, highlighting its achievements and meticulously thought-out production methods. He also observes the workers’ conditions, occasionally including their own comments. Separate chapters are dedicated to Ford’s establishment of a hospital and a school for workers’ children, intended to prepare them for future employment in his factories, as well as conversations with Ford himself.

The striking suprematist cover design was created by Nikolai Suetin (1897-1954), “one of the most profound disciples of Kazimir Malevich” (Rakitin), chief artist of the Leningrad Porcelain Factory (where he was invited by Anna Akhmatova’s second husband, NIkolai Punin), and the designer of the Soviet pavilions for the World Exhibitions in Paris (1937) and New York (1939). Although he experimented with a wide range of decorative projects, from fabrics to furniture, Suetin designed few book covers, and the present edition is the most successful example of his creativity in this field, blending his multidimensional suprematist art with the latest achievements of avant-garde typeface design.

German Genkel (1854-1940) was a Russian scholar of oriental languages and Hebrew, and a specialist in Jewish manuscripts and rare books (but doesn’t seem to comment here on Ford’s publishing activity about the Jewish people).

Bibliography

MoMA 627; Leporskaia, Anna, quoted by Virtualnyi Russkii Muzei. “N. M. Suetin. Oblozhka knigi M. Gorkogo ‘Vladimir Lenin'”. (online); Rakitin V. I. “Suetin Nikolai Mikhailovich” // Entsiklopediia Russkogo avangarda (online).