[AVANT-GARDE FOR SOVIET CHILDREN] Korabli [Ships].
Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo, 1929. Octavo (22.5 × 19.3 cm). Original staple-stitched pictorial self-wrappers; [12] pp. Chromolithograph illustrations throughout. Name of the owner inscribed in blue ink to front wrapper. Light soil to wrappers; spine somewhat rubbed; else about very good. Item #55788
An illustrated history of sailing vessels for children, with drawings and text by the graphic artist and prolific children’s book illustrator Vladimir Tambi (1906–1955), best remembered for his “productivist” popular science books on the topics of technology. The full-page chromolithograph illustrations create an immersive feel, with the book covering ship history from the Galleys of the ancient Mediterranean and Dhow ships of the Indian ocean to contemporary steamships and ocean liners. Born in St. Petersburg, the shipbuilding capital of the Russian empire, Tambi was an especially great lover of ships. In 1920 he started his artistic education at the Proletkult workshops, later moving to VKhUTEIN (1922–1924) to study with the avant-garde master painter Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin, and the avant-garde graphic artist and pioneer of children's illustration Vladimir Lebedev. In 1925, without graduating from art school, Tambi signed on as a stoker on the steamship “Roshal” which sailed from Leningrad to London, hoping to get a deeper understanding of ships and of life at sea. He would go on to illustrate 150 children’s books, focusing especially on science and technology, with his other titles including “Warships” (1929), “Airplanes” (1929), “U Boats” (1930), “Water races” (1932), and “Wheels” (1930; in collaboration with Samuil Marshak), among many others. The art historian Dmitrii Fomin writes: “Even when depicting an impersonal, highly standardized world of ships, aircraft, and artillery pieces, Tambi managed to find an expressive, easily recognizable and distinctive individual style. For all the precision with which details are rendered, his compositions possess a decorative quality all their own; indeed, their rhythmic and coloristic execution might even be described as exquisite” (See: Kniga dlia detei 1881–1939, Vol. 2, p. 199). During the WWII, Tamby remained in Leningrad during the Blockade, working as part of the “Combat Pencil” group designing anti-fascist posters. From 1944–1946 he was an art director of the Estonian State Publishing House. Fifteen of his books are part of the Lur’e, collection with this one No. 326 in Lur’e.
As of July 2026, KVK, OCLC show one copy worldwide, in North America.
Price: €1,500.00