Boris Ignatovich
Nikolai Sedel’nikov (1905-1994)
Man is Created for Happiness!, 1930s
Collage with rotogravure, gouache and ink on proof sheet
Maquette for a book cover
13 1/6 x 9 1/2 in. (33 x 34.2 cm)
Depicted are socially-useful forms of recreation such as visiting a museum, physical sport, studying, and attending a political meeting. The title perhaps takes from Vladimir Korolenko’s story, Paradox (1894) in which the physically disabled protagonist proclaims that “man is created for happiness, as a bird is for flight,” despite his difficult circumstances. The slogan may equally seem paradoxical on this collage, as Sedel’nikov created it in the 1930s during a period of economic and social instability.
Nikolai Sedel’nikov (1905-1994)
Untitled (1,2,3,4), 1930s
Collage with gouache and ink on recto
11 7/8 x 16 5/8 in. (30 x 42 cm)
This collage celebrates the increasing presence of women in the factory workplace during the Five-Year Plan ( 1928-1932). Sedel’nikov depicts women operating machinery in androgynous workers uniforms that downplay their femininity. In collages such as this one, Sedel’nikov incorporated the avant-garde aesthetics of high culture into the realm of mass-media. Graphic elements like the red triangle, black circles, and alternating black and white checkerboard pattern — specifically recall Kazimir Malevich’s Suprematist compositions.
Nikolai Sedel’nikov (1905-1994)
Maquette for Giants in Construction, no. 2, 1930s
10 x 21 13/16 in. (25.3 x 55.4 cm)
Collage and gouache on recto
Giants in Construction was likely a series dedicated to documenting Soviet industrial advancements around the First Five Year Plan (1928-1932). This cover appears to illustrate the construction of a massive dam. Sedel’nikov demonstrates an experimental handling of space, in which photography and graphic elements, like line and color — rely on one another to tell a story about the construction project. A worker suspends a crane hook from the book’s spine, and the entire composition radiates from a black and orange semi-circle at the bottom of the page.
Soldiers of the Army for Labor, c. 1932
Collage with gouache, pencil, rotogravure, offset lithography and paper
Monogrammed in ink on recto
15 x 11 1/4 in. (38.2 x 28.5 cm)
Nikolai Sedel'nikov (1905-1994)
Nikolai Sedel’nikov (1905-1994)
Untitled (figure skaters), n.d.
Maquette for a book cover
Offset print, gouache, ink on paper
14 1/2 x 10 3/8 in. (36.8 x 26.4 cm)
Nikolai Sedel’nikov (1905-1994)
Maquette for front page of Trud (Bicycle Sport), c. 1930
Collage with photogravure, gouache and ink on paper
11 7/8 x 9 1/4 in. (30.2 x 23.5 cm)
Velo-Sport, or Bicycle Sport, was designed for the front cover of the major Russian-language newspaper, Trud (labor). Lighthearted in nature, the collage celebrates cycling as a new form of recreation. Sedel’nikov created the collage with bright, dynamic design elements: the title and image of a group of cyclists, all coalesce at one point. Especially intriguing are the bicycle wheels on the left side of the composition that act as a window onto a dreamy landscape.
Nikolai Sedel’nikov (1905-1994)
Maquette for Charles Lindberg. Samolet i Ya (Charles Lindbergh. We: Pilot & Plane) Moscow; Leningrad: Gos. izdatel’stvo, 1930
Collage with photogravure, gouache and ink
12 x 16 1/8 in. (30.5 x 41.1 cm)
This collage was created for the 1930s Russian translation of Charles Lindbergh's We: Pilot & Plane, chronicling the pilot's flight across the Atlantic.
Nikolai Sedel’nikov (1905-1994)
Maquette for Life Overseas, n.d.
Collage with gouache and rotogravure on recto
13 1/8 x 9 3/4 in. (33.4 x 24.7 cm)
In 1882, writer Alexander Lopukhin published Life Overseas, about his travels in the United States and his impressions of the country’s social, political, and religious values. In this maquette for Lopukhin’s book, Sedel’nikov illustrated Lopukhin’s vision with collaged photographs of war and social injustice. Created in the 1950s, the collage recontextualizes Lopukhin’s original conclusions within the realm of Cold War politics.
Semyon Semyonov (1895-1982)
Turksib (Turkestan-Siberia Railroad), 1929
Lithograph
42 3/4 x 28 1/4 in. (108.59 x 71.8 cm)
Turksib was a unique film about the construction of a monumental Soviet railroad project that connected Central Asia to the icy Siberian mountains. The film was created by some of the most experimental artists of the time: film director Victor Turin, the screen writer Viktor Shklovsky, who famously pioneered the theory of Russian Formalism, and the cinematographer Boris Frantsisson, who used camera work with an epic sweep. The MIT-educated Turin trained at Hollywood's Vitagraph Studios and became a fan of westerns before returning to the Soviet Union to direct this career-defining film. Turksib had a a major influence on British and American documentary films in the 1930s. (source)
Vladimir and Georgii Stenberg
This poster was used as an advertisement for Walter Ruttman’s 1927 film Symphony of a Great City. The film chronicles one day in Berlin during a period of rapid technological change. Recalling the poster for Vertov’s The Man with a Movie Camera, in this poster, the Stenberg Brothers replaced the protagonists limbs, eyes and ears with a typewriter, a film camera, and a gramophone.The poster suggests a new modernist subjectivity shaped by a technology-filled reality. The poster’s diagonal composition, expressive colors, and grid-like structure recall the Stenberg Brothers’ early Constructivist designs.
The poster is reproduced on page 53 of Stenberg Brothers: Constructing a Revolution in Soviet Design.
Eduard Dortman
Maquette for the advertisement for Golden Beak, late 1920s
Collage with gouache, ink, pencil and cut paper
9 7/16 x 12 5/8 in. (24 x 32.1 cm)
This maquette is for a poster advertising the silent film Golden Beak (1929), based on a historical novel by Anna Karavaeva about a group of serfs who rebel against their factory supervisors and set off in search of freedom.
