Mikhail Larionov, Bread, Russian Avant-Garde Lithography, A. Kruchenykh, 1912

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Russian & Soviet Art

By Rare Paper

Sep 30, 2016 - Oct 27, 2016

Set Reminder 2016-09-30 19:00:00 2016-10-27 19:00:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : Russian & Soviet Art https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/rare-paper/russian-soviet-art-1786
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• Lot Description

  Mikhail Larionov, Bread. Published by Alexey Kruchenykh, 1912.

  Dimensions: 9.3 x 14 cm.

  One of the key representatives of futurism in Russia was, without a doubt, Alexey Kruchenykh (1886-1968). He was the most radical poet of the Silver Age*, the founder of the literary language Zaum* and a man of fanatical adherence to futurism. He gathered and rallied around him artists such as Natalia Goncharova*, Michael and Ivan Larionov*, Olga Rozanova* and Vladimir Tatlin*. Together with these artists, Kruchenykh released the first lithographed books, which led to the popularity of the Russian avant-garde all over the world. 

  However, even before the first lithographed books in 1912, Kruchenykh published, with his own money, an amazing series of postcards. The postcards were designed by the futurist artists in the lithographic technique. He invited to this project the following well-known artists of the day:  Goncharova, the Larionov brothers, Tatlin, Aleksandr Shevchenko and Nikolai Rogovin. The lithographic technique was chosen deliberately because the lithographic pencil gave absolute freedom to the artists, who did not want to repeat their works, rather make different variations of them. The authors of these postcards created their paintings in the primitive style, changing their composition significantly.

   

  The artists released 35 postcards in this series. Fourteen cards were created by M. Larionov, 11 by Goncharova, 3 by Tatlin, 3 by I. Larionov, 3 by Shevchenko and 1 by Rogovin. Kruchenykh could not publish thousands of postcards because the series was not commercial and he paid out of his own pocket without any profit. In addition, the expense of producing these postcards was very high (special paper, double-sided printing etc.) This may be why some postcards don’t contain any information on the reverse side about the author, the publisher or even the title. Therefore, we can assume that their circulation was limited to about 300 copies. The rarity of most of the postcards is much greater than that of the well-known series Bauhaus* since the rarest of them preserved fewer than 10 copies, and probably much less. Among the postcards, there are unique examples painted in watercolor.

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