Mayakovsky (Maiakovskii), Vladimir and Mikhail Larionov, artist.

[RUSSIAN FUTURISM – AVANT-GARDE] Solntse: poema [The sun: a poem].

Moscow; St. Petersburg: Krug, 1923. Octavo (16.5 × 12.8 cm). Original staple-stitched pictorial wrappers; [30] pp. Eight illustrations by Mikhail Larionov. Light soil and foxing to wrappers; else about very good. Item #55093

First freestanding volume of this long poem by Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893–1930), with cover and eight Rayonist/Cubist illustrations in the text by the avant-garde painter and graphic artist Mikhail Larionov (1881–1964). The poem, originally titled “An unusual adventure, which occurred with Vladimir Mayakovsky in the summer at the dacha” (1920) was first published in the almanac Liren’ in 1921, and seems to be a continuation of the theme explored in the 1913 Futurist opera “Victory over the sun” written by Aleksei Kruchenykh. The costumes for the 1913 staging of “Victory” were famously done by Kazimir Malevich, with this volume illustrated by the other master of avant-garde painting and abstraction, Mikhail Larionov, who was already living in Paris at the time, designing sets for Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes.

The volume was published by Artel “Krug” (Circle) a collective of “fellow traveler” writers and artists which operated in Moscow in 1922–1929. The Krug collective also published an eponymous almanac, six issues of which came out in 1923–1926 with wrapper design and Constructivist exlibris done by the avant-garde artist Yurii Annenkov. Publisher catalog to last two pages, including titles by Osip Mandelshtam, Boris Pil’niak, and Nikolai Aseev, with illustrations by avant-garde artists such as Aleksandr Rodchenko, Yurii Annenkov, and Ivan Rerberg among others.

One of 5000 copies. No. 469 in The Russian Avant-Garde Book (MoMA collection).

Price: €2,000.00

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