JF Ptak Science Books Quick Post
There is nothing quite like the set and costume designs coming from the Soviet Union in the 1920's, and this collection of work by Anatol Petrizky (described below) attests to that. My interest is more in the design of the sets than in the costumes--and so far as I can determine none of those (reproduced in black and white) have yet been on the net. (This book is also offered for sale in the blog's bookstore.)
[FRONTISPIECE]
PETRIZKY, Anatol (1895-1964). [B. Chmury] Anatol Petrizky, Theatre-Trachten. [Anatol Petrizky Teatralni Stroi] Iintroductory essay by V. Khmury (Chmury). [Soviet Union]: StaatsVerlag der Ukraine, 1929. One of 1500 unnumbered copies. Design and images by Anatol Petrizky, text by B. Chmury.
This book was published in Ukraine in 1929; although this is not the time or place (I really just wanted to post about this book as a beautiful artistic piece of work), I could not let it pass without at least mentioning what man-made disasters lie ahead for the Ukrainian SSR and for the resst of the Soviet Union.
"Illustrations date to Petrizky's Constructivist period, and include his acclaimed 1922 sketches for Goleisovsky's ballet Eccentric Dances (selected by Stephen Bury for Breaking the Rules: The Printed Face of the European Avant-Garde 1900-1937 exhibit in British Library, 2007-08). In the 1930s Petrizky was forced to move away from the avant-garde, choosing instead to seek inspiration in Ukrainian folk art. This assured him a long and successful career in Soviet arts: Peoples Artist of the Soviet Union, winner of State Prizes for his stage designs in 1949 and 1951)." --Mercer and Middlesex Auctions LLC
Text in Ukrainian and German. Folio, 347 x 261 mm. 26 pages of text, with 13 black and white textual illustrations and sketch-design head & tailpieces. Also 28 full-page mounted color lithographs, many with gold or silver metallic inks, and 27 mounted full-page black & white plates. All save the frontispiece are mounted front and back on heavy card stock, and all (except the last plate) have their glassine tissue guards. Each image is about 240x170mm and pasted on the thick grey card-stock leaves.
They seem to have a very distinctive Constructivist flavor to them, these designs, reminding me some of Malevich and Bakst and Exter.
Full-page image list:
Frontis: Wij
1-3: Exzentrischer Tanz, staged by K. Goleisovsky (4 plate)
4: Präludium von Skrjabin by L. Lukin (1 plate)
5: Exzentrischer Tanz, staged by K. Goleisovsky (1 plate)
6-9: Nur und Anitra by M. Mordkin (4 plates)
10-19: Wij, Herr Chorunschij by H. Jura (9 plates)
19-25: Der Jahrmarkt von Ssorotschinzi (7 plates)
26-33: Der Korsar (8 plates)
34-41:Fürst Igor (8 plates)
42-47: Wilhelm Tell (6 plates)
48-52: Der rote Mohn (5 plates)
53-56: Turandott by Lui Laber (4 plates)
for a total of 57 images.
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