Moscow publishing house "Contact-Culture" is once again pleased with all the amateurs and even professionals who are interested in Russian avant-garde. This year I have to assess the remarkable album- directory "Vzorval» , with a description of the rare book collections of the futuristic Moscow collectors Liberman and I. Rozanova, publisher timed its release to the 100 anniversary of Russian Futurism. And with a small interval beyond two more books of this publishing house, which will be indispensable aids for collectors of one of the areas of Russian avant-garde - constructivism.

One of them - the album "The shock of the Soviet book of kids' author Mikhail Karasik, which describes about a hundred children's books 1920-30-ies, created by Soviet designers with photo illustrations and photomontages. This direction in the illustration is now regarded as the most interesting part of Russian Constructivism and highly regarded in art history, and in purely commercial terms abroad. The great merit of this album, among many illustrations, is a full description of rare books with dimensions of books, circulation and number of pages.

second book is devoted to the work of famous designers - the classics of Russian avant-garde Gustav Klucis and, unfortunately, less well known but no less gifted his wife Valentina Kulagina .

About Gustav Gustavovich in 1981 published a small monograph by Oginsky, in most its black and white illustrations, where the date of death Klucis erroneously listed in 1944. In the new edition described us finally specify the exact date of execution of the artist: February 26, 1938. Was even released an album dedicated to the artist, but he came in socialist Germany, and, unfortunately, in German.

About Creativity Klucis wife Valentina Kulagina Nikiforovna until now there was no intelligible publication ...

The album is replete with color illustrations, and contains a large amount of factual material, including an article Klucis of photomontage, which he first used in Russia as an illustration. For the first time shows, even the pages of newspapers, decorated by the artist, and a number of rare magazines with covers in the design of both spouses (now these books in the antiquarian book market does not find).

I write this review without reading the text . I was fascinated by the creativity of artists, considering only the illustrations. By the way, sorry, that among them there are very small, annoying also that there are volumes of books and journals, designed by these designers. Maybe the album will be, and errors, incorrect evaluation or other inaccuracies, but what I do see how images in this album - it's great! The book-album would be an indispensable tool for anyone fascinated by Russian Constructivism, the more it is fitted with parallel text in English. Thanks to the publishers.

Anatoly Borovkov, a member of the International Confederation of antique and art dealers,
expert on books and printed graphics Russian avant-garde, especially for the AI

Source: artinvestment.ru