Kholostenko, Ie[vhen] and Vasily Sedliar, design.

[UKRAINE – AVANT-GARDE] Bela Uits [Béla Uitz].

Kharkiv: Mystetstvo, 1933. Large octavo (25.7 × 18.8 cm). Original pictorial wrappers by Vasily Sedliar, decorative dust jacket; 20, [1] pp. of text, 41 leaves of plates to rectos, [2] pp. of text including list of reproductions. Small loss to corner of first leaf; pre-war stamps to title verso and p. 21 of the Ukrainian Public Library, without inventory numbers, marking the book part of the later dispersed duplicate exchange fund. Else about very good. Item #54109

A striking, important Ukrainian avant-garde book, designed by Vasily Sedliar (1899–1937), a leading Ukrainian painter, illustrator, and art pedagogue of the interwar period who was killed during the Stalin Terror of 1937. The book is likely the first monograph on Béla Uitz (1887–1972), a Hungarian-Soviet avant-garde artist who later turned to monumental painting, creating large-scale murals for the Kharkiv Krasnovodsk Theatre, a project he worked on with Sedliar. Uitz was initially influenced by Cubism, Expressionism, and later Constructivism, with the 42 reproductions of his work in this volume tracing his artistic trajectory. Active in Comintern in Hungary, France, Austria and Germany, in 1926 Uitz moved to the Soviet Union, joining the October group and teaching at VKhUTEMAS in 1927–1930. In 1931 Uitz was elected secretary of the International Union of Revolutionary Artists at a conference held in Kharkiv, and commissioned to decorate the Kharkiv theatre, with this volume likely published for the occasion.

The Ukrainian art critic and monumental painter Ievhen Kholostenko (1904–1945) wrote the introductory text to the volume. Both Sedliar and Kholostenko were students of Mykhailo Boichuk (1882–1937) at the Kyiv Academy of Art. A celebrated modernist painter Boichuk came into disfavor in the 1930s. His arrest and execution (he was accused of being “an agent of the Vatican”) affected an entire generation of students, known as the “Boichukists,” who practiced the innovative kind of monumental painting Boichuk taught. One of the closest associates of Boichuk, Sedliar was part of the so-called “executed renaissance” (rozstriliane vidrodzhennia), a generation of innovative artists and writers who perished during the Great Purge. Any printed matter bearing their names was systematically removed from libraries and bookstores in the late 1930s.

As of June 2024, KVK, OCLC show a sole copy worldwide, at Staats- & Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg.

Price: €2,250.00

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