Semper, Johannes, editor; Jaan Vahtra, illustrator.

[ESTONIAN AVANT-GARDE] Pallas: Almanach estnischer Dichtung und Kunst [Pallas: an almanach of Estonian poetry and art].

Tartu: Pallas-Verlag, 1927. Octavo (21.5 × 14 cm). Original pictorial wrappers (front and back), and one title vignette, by Jaan Vahtra; 120, [2] pp. Numerous reproductions, many full-page, and smaller vignettes. Light abrasions to overlapping wrapper edges; front wrapper with light creases and professionally repaired tear; still about very good. Item #P5183

First and only issue of this German-language anthology of Estonian avant-garde literature and art, produced by members of the Tartu-based Pallas School of Art, and the Group of Estonian Artists (founded in 1923), one of the most influential artistic collectives in Northern Europe. During the rise of an independent Estonian state post-1918, a "small cohort of intellectuals and artists was waging a cultural war against both aggressive outsiders and defiant insiders ... in an effort to articulate a modern art appropriate for a new state. The center of their activities was Tartu, a town with a distinguished tradition of supporting art in Estonia... The resulting Pallas School was to become the core institution of the Estonian avant-garde and the training academy for later generations of the nation's artists" (Modernism in the Baltics, p. 44). With contributions by Johannes Semper, Henrik Visnapuu, Gustav Suits, August Alle, as well as reproductions of work by the artists Ado Vabbe, Eduard Viiralt, Jaan Vahtra (including a constructivist painting and a self-portrait), A. Starkopf, K. Mägi, and Nikolai Triik. Wrappers with a strong constructivist composition, and a striking geometric tile pattern to the rear wrapper, as well as a vignette to the title, by Jaan Vahtra, a painter and graphic artists who became the leading propagator of cubist and constructivist impulses in the Baltics. This title is pictured in Graphic Modernism, from the Baltic to the Balkans, 1910-1935 (New York Public Library, 2007), p. 44, albeit with a variant showing blue rather than orange highlights on the cover design.

As of January 2024, KVK, OCLC show six copies in North America.

Price: €1,200.00

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