[FUTURISM TO CONSTRUCTIVISM] Lenin: risunki i oblozhka raboty Natana Al'tmana [Lenin: sketches and wrapper design by Nathan Altman].
St. Petersburg: Izdanie Otdela izobrazitelʹnykh iskusstv Narodnogo komissariata po prosveshchenii︠u︡, 1921. Octavo (23.5 × 19.2). Original pictorial wrappers by Natan Al'tman; [4] leaves including title, editor's note, and facsimile signature of Lenin; [12] leaves of lithographs to recto; [2] leaves including list of illustrations and colophon. Light soil to wrappers, small creases along wrapper edges; else very good. Item #54884
A volume containing ten portraits of Lenin with Constructivist wrappers by the avant-garde graphic artist, painter, and sculptor Natan Al'tman (1889–1970). The wrapper design includes elements of both Futurism (lettering) and Constructivism (use of line and color) with this clearly a transitional work for Al’tman. The lithograph reproductions include portraits of the Bolshevik leader at work, speaking on the phone, meeting with the German workers, and with representatives of the British Unions. The final drawing shows the view from Lenin’s office overlooking the Kremlin. The sketches were made over the course of six weeks in the spring of 1920, when Al’tman was allowed to observe Lenin at work in his office, in preparation for the creation of a sculpted bust of the Bolshevik leader, making Al’tman one of a handful of artists who was able to make live sketches of Lenin.
Born in Vinnytsia (Ukraine), Al'tman studied at the Grekov Odessa Art School (1902–1907, continuing his art education in Paris in 1910. On his return, he participated in key modernist and avant-garde exhibitions such as The Society of Artists of Southern Ukraine (Odessa, 1910), Mir Iskusstva (St. Petersburg, 1913), Soiuz Molodezhi (St. Petersburg, 1913), Last Futurist Exhibition 0,10 (Petrograd, 1915), Jack of Diamonds (Moscow, 1916). In the same period he illustrated Futurist books such as Aleksei Kruchenykh’s “Explodity” (along with Natalia Goncharova, Nikolai Kul’bin, Kazimir Malevich, and Olga Rozanova). See no. 55 in The Russian Avant-Garde Book 1910–1934). In 1918–1919, he co-edited Iskusstvo Kommuny (with Osip Brik and Nikolai Punin), the first Futurist newspaper in Petrograd. Al'tman’s famous decorations for the first anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution in 1918 in Petrograd contained cubo-futurist elements. The wrappers of the present publication seem to reference El Lissitzky’s iconic design of the propaganda poster “Beat the Whites With the Red Wedge” created just a year prior in 1919.
No. 331 in The Russian Avant-Garde Book 1910–1934 (MoMA Collection).
As of March 2025, KVK, OCLC show eight copies in North America.
Price: €1,200.00