Search Results: Russian avant-garde from Michael Fagan Fine Art & Rare Books

Moscow-Leningrad: Kinopechat', 1927 Octavo 15x11 cm., wrappers, 16pp. 15000 copies. Photomontage cover, photos and caricature drawing unattributed. Von Stroheim (1885-1957) was a giant among early film makers, a film star and avant garde, visionary director of the silent era. His masterpiece adaptation of Frank Norris's McTeague titled Greed is considered one of the finest and most important films ever made. After clashes with Hollywood studio bosses over budget and workers' rights issues, Stroheim was banned for life as a director and subsequently became a well-respected character actor, particularly in French cinema. For his early innovations as a director, Stroheim is still celebrated as one of the first of the auteur directors. Five North American holdings institutional holdings. Glavlit 78736. This copy fine.

Moscow-Leningrad: Teakinopechat', 1928 Octavo 18x13 cm., wrappers, 16pp. Glavlit A10279. Harry Piel (1892-1973) was a German actor on stage and film. He became a film idol during the 1920s. Unattributed photomontage cover. One library holding in North America (USC).

Moscow-Leningrad: Kinopechat', 1926 Octavo 15x11 cm., wrappers, 16pp. Fine photomontage by Naum Sokolik. A brief essay on Harry Piel (Hubert August Piel, 1892-1963), prolific German actor who appeared in over 150 films. Glavlit 59570. OCLC finds this in only the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.

Quarto 23x15.5 cm., original wrappers, 76(1) pp. Cover design by N. Suetin.
Herman Henkel (1865-1940) was an Orientalist, Hebraist, and scholar who write widely on his fields and other topics. This work on the auto magnate is one of his last published papers. Striking cover design by Nikolai Suetin (1897-1954) a steller artist and designer working with the Suprematists. OCLC locates one holding in North America (Princeton), but MOMA 627. A fine copy.

Paris: Éditions Spiralinthe, 2011 Small quarto, wrappers, 158pp. "The City." Second expanded edition of this legendary book originally published in 1920. The first edition was only in Russian and had a limitation of 300 copies. It is scarce and copies on the market fetch high prices. This edition includes a translation into French with an essay by Wladimir Berelowitch, with further essays by Nancy Perloff, Lucie Nicolas-Vullierme, and Susan Solomon. Not only reprinting the original Russian edition of 1920, it also includes scholarly and biographical perspectives, with numerous photos and documentation. This trade edition has never been released to the public, and there are no library holdings for this edition

Large octavo 22x15 cm., original stiff wrappers, 172, ii, (37), xxx leaves of plates. No. 445 or 3500 copies. Possibly the first 500 copies were dedicated. The Soviet State publishing giant Gosizdat was formed in 1919 under Antonin Lunacharskii. It subsumed all private publishing at that time and brought it under state control. It lasted until 1930 when it was absorbed into OGIZ (Unified State Publishing House). It went under the directorship of Vatslav Vorovskii from 1919-21 and Otto Shmidt from 1921-24. Therefore virtually any important work that appeared during this time was under the Gosizdat imprint. This is a five-year commemorative volume, showcasing the most noteworthy productions in that time. This was a fairly open period of Russian publishing, with many later banished figures and luminaries (Trotsky and L. Kamenev), poets, playwrights, novelists (Tsvetaeva, Furmanov, Esenin, Lunacharsky) inter alia, and bibliophile productions. Gosizdat employed great designers (Rodchenko, Klutsis,… Read More

Paris: Union des artistes russes, 1923 Folio 33x25 cm., wrappers, 16pp. Cover by Mikhail Larionov. Tipped in reproduction of Derain portrait, drawings and engravings by Joan Gris, Pablo Picasso, Natalia Gontcharova, inter alia, facsimile poems by Tzara, Huidobro, Ribemont-Dessaignes, Soupault, Malcolm Cowley, and Russian members on the Committee. A major event which brought luminaries of the avant-garde living in Paris at the time. OCLC finds 8 library holdings in North America. This very good, with professionally rebuilt spine.

Large octavo 22.3x18 cm., wrappers, 39 pp. Superb cover photomontage by Georgii Stenberg. The cover incorporates photos of the four poets in this collection by Moisei Nappel'baum. This is the second collection of poetry issued by the Imazhinisty. The Imaginists were a group of poets founded with Esenin in 1919. Esenin left the group in 1922 and their strength (and political acceptability) declined without the charismatic, winsome Esenin. OCLC locates four holdings in North America (Getty 253, U No. Carolina, U VA, Stanford). Very good++.

Octavo 16.5x12 cm., original wrappers, 60pp. with dust wrapper and cover design by Borys Kryukov. Probably released in less than 1000 copies. Russian text. Evgenii Nezhintsev (1904-1942) was a poet and translator, who rendered many Ukrainian authors into Russian for publication. These are his first published poems. He joined the All-Russian Union of Writers the following year. Boris Kriukov (1895-1967) was a painter and graphic artists who studied in Kyiv where he worked until 1943, then emigrated from Lviv in 1944 to Germany, then to Buenos Aires where he enjoyed a long career of book illustration. In the years of the Ukrainian avant-garde he was well known for his modernist work. Former owner stamp on front fly. Uncut. Worldcat locates no institutional holdings for this work, including Russia.

Moscow-Leningrad: Kinopechat', 1928 Duodecimo 14.3x9.5 cm, wrappers, (6)pp. Remarkable strong cover for the screenplay written by Antalolii Lunacharskii from his theater drama. Rare, with no institutional holdings found in worldcat. Very good with stamped rear cover.

Quarto 23x18 cm, original wrappers, 28 (ii), 6 color lithographs. Unknown edition. "Exodus" refers to leaving Penza, where Mariengof lived as a student. This is a Futurist work, with superb examples of artwork by Mariengof's fellow student Vitalii Usenko (dates and biographical infounknown). It is late Futurism, and traces the link Mariengof used to connect to Imagism, which morphed into Imaginism by 1920 and for which the poet is most renowned. The almanac includes an assortment of work by other poets (Startsev, Stotov, Vigranskii), with the most notable being the first appearance of Osip Mandel'shtam's Dekabristy from 1917---a striking anomaly (it would be first published officially in Tristia in 1922). Copies of this work found in Yale, Getty (260), MOMA 208. A very fine copy, near new.

Gosudarstevnnaia Akademiia Khudozhestvennykh Nauk, g.a.kh.n., 1928 Two volumes, complete pubication for year. Quarto, wrappers, 176, 240pp. Unattributed cover design. Fourth and final year of "ART," an occasional arts and literary yearbook published sporadically from 1923 to 1928, in an edition of 1000 copies. In earlier years it was a fairly academic, conservative review/symposium but in 1928 there were a host of avant-garde contributors reviewing theater, poetry, visual and musical arts by leading intellectuals and artists including Lunacharsky, Efros, and Marc Chagall who wrote an obituary for Iakov Tugendhold's passing that year. Illustrated with rare images of Soviet stage designs, costumes, photocollage, exhibition photos, painting and sculpture, all experimental and modernist. A microfilm was released in 1964. Worldcat indicates 14 actual (not digital) holdings in North America.

Octavo 20x13.5 cm., decorated boards, 238 pp. 3000 copies. Cover design by Aleksandr Rodchenko. Nikolai Aseev (1889-1963) was a Futurist and later revolutionary romantic poet, who was also an important theoretician of poetics. Getty 35,

Moscow-Leningrad: Kinopechat', 1927 Octavo 17x13cm., wrappers, 64pp. Cover design by the Stenberg Brothers. Founded in 1914 by Aleksandr Tairov. It provided an intimate environment which drew the audience and actors together. In the early Soviet era it presented major experimental drama and was buttressed by the artistic director Aleksandra Ekster for set and costume design, and further collaboration of Konstantin Medunetskii for decor. Initially it steered clear of any political orientation, but in 1928 Tairov produced Bulgakov's Purple Island which drew the authorities' attention. Stalin himself mocked its presence as a bourgeois theater and thenceforth it operated under close scrutiny, persisting into WWII. This book is the first appraisal of its place in Russian art and culture, with photos of its various activities to date of various major productions before it encountered government resistance. OCLC finds 6 North American library holdings of this first edition.

Octavo 21.4x14 cm., original wrappers, 104 pp. 3000 copies. Full-cover design by El Lissitzky. Mayakovsky wrote this poem as his contribution to the tenth anniversary of the Revolution. It is a long poem, epical and didactic, aimed at mass readership to learn of the forces that brought the Revolution about and a heroic depiction of the triumph of the proletariat. El Lissitzky employs Suprematist principles that he championed into the wrapper design. MOMA 703, Getty 513. Very good ++.

Moscow-Leningrad: Kinopechat', 1927 Octavo 15x11.5 cm., wrappers, 15(1)pp. Eggert (1883-1955) was a Russian actor film director, renowned for his work in The Lame Gentlemen, Gobseck, and The Marriage of the Bear. Glavlit 85416. Two institutional holdings (Yale, USC) found in North America. Near fine copy with rear cover marking.

Moscow: V.V. Mayakovsky Museum, 2002 Large octavo, wrappers, 92pp. An illustrated catalogue of Kruchenykh's early work, much of it handwritten and unique, in the Museum's collection. From the brief era of prolific creativity that abounded in Tbilisi before it became a Soviet republic, the arts and literature flourished and produced a number of significant developments that contributed to 20th-century culture. In addition to Kruchenykh and Maiakovskii, the Zdanevich brothers, Khlebnikov and Kamenskii, participated in a matrix that gave birth to "zaum" or trans-rational language and vision. Importantly, most of the work Kruchenykh produced with Ol'ga Rozanova is documented. Sumptuously illustrated throughout in full color and printed on heavy stock.

Moscow-Leningrad: Kinopechat', 1926 Octavo 15x11 cm., wrappers. 16pp. Glavlit 85154. Author Vadim Shershenevich (1893-1942) was a Russian poet who founded Imaginism, which flourished briefly in the early revolution. He moved his efforts to the theater and wrote many screenplays in 1926. Anatoli Ktorov (1898-1980) In 1925 Ktorov shot to fame with the leading role in the silent movie Zakroyshchik iz Torzhka (The Tailor from Torzhok) by director Yakov Protazanov. He also gave an impressive performance in Protazanov's Prazdnik svyatogo Yorgena (St. Jorgen's Day). He went on to star in many films throughout a long career.

Quarto folio 28x23 cm., decorated boards, 16pp. 50 plates. The first of a three-part series. The first part includes plates from two earlier issues of L'architecture vivante. Superb collection of works by Aleksandr Vesnin, G. Iakulov, Aleksandr Rodchenko, W & G Stenberg, M.J. Ginsburg, I. Leonidov, Kholostenko, Khidekel, Gabo, Lissitzky, Melnikov, and others. Very good cover with ties, interior near fine.

Small quarto 23.5x14.5 cm.,, cloth, 158pp., slipcased. Second expanded edition of this legendary book originally published in 1920. The first edition was only in Russian and had a limitation of 300 copies. It is scarce and copies on the market fetch high prices. This edition is translated into French by Wladimir Berelowitch, with essays by Nancy Perloff, Lucie Nicolas-Vullierme, Susan Solomon, Wladimir Berelowitch. Not only a reprint edition of the original Russian edition of 1920, it also includes scholarly and biographical perspectives, including numerous photos and documentation. This is a bibliophile edition of 150 numbered copies. It has never been released publicly. This is the deluxe edition which is printed on finer paper and comes with a nice slipcase.