Boston Antiquarian Book Fair 2019
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BOSTON ANTIQUARIAN BOOK FAIR 2019 BOOKVICA 1 F O R E W O R D Dear friends and colleagues, We would like to share with you the catalogue of rare items that we selected for one of our favourite book fairs of the year - Boston book fair. The focus of the catalogue is on the multilevel phenomenon of the early Soviet book. The time of groundbreaking experiments in a book design, architecture, theatre, literature, science, etc. are well documented and represented in the catalogue. Some of our favourite highlights include Tarabukin’s classical publication ‘Iskusstvo Dnia’ (#9) in which he calls agitational poster the highest form of art; expressionist illustrations by Yurii Pimenov for Zharov’s collection of poetry - one of the best illustrated Soviet books of the 1930s (#8); the dictionary of the criminal slang of the 1920s (#17); one of the key works of Central Institute of Labour led by A. Gastev (#16); classical book by Solomon Telingator on the art of book printing (#25); extremely rare year-run of Ukrainian architecture magazine ‘For Workers’ Dwelling’ printed in Kharkiv in 1931 (#2). We are looking forward to seeing you at the fair! The catalogue was prepared with the help of the team of San Francisco based book shop Globus Books. Bookvica team, November 2019 BOOKVICA 2 F O R E W O R D Bookvica 15 Uznadze St. Nizh. Syromyatnicheskaya St. 11/1 0102 Tbilisi Suite 208 GEORGIA Moscow, RUSSIA +7 (985) 218-6937 +7 (916) 850-6497 [email protected] www.bookvica.com Globus Books 332 Balboa St. San Francisco, CA 94118 USA +1 (415) 668-4723 [email protected] www.globusbooks.com BOOKVICA 3 I ARCHITECTURE 01 [LEARNING TO FANTASIZE LIKE CHERNIKHOV] Chernikhov, Y.G. Iskusstvo nachertania [i.e. The Art of Graphic Representation]. [Leningrad]: Knigoizdate’stvo Akademii khudozhetsv, [1927]. 77, [3] pp.: ill. 18x13 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Near fine copy. Tiny tear of the spine. Worldcat locates First edition of the first book. Yakov Chernikhov (1889-1951) copies at Cleveland was one of the most unusual and innovative talents of the time, known Library, Getty Research Institute, for his Architectural Fantasies, and here are these fantasies in the NYPL. making. This is a textbook on a special subject developed Chernikhov himself, which he called «the art of graphic representation». It was not a drawing textbook, as one might understand from the title. Under the old-fashioned title Chernikhov meant something very modern. It is about graphic, spatial, and abstract compositions, and seeks to encourage students to use lines, planes, and solid to express beauty and movement without depicting anything known or recognizable, No 01 BOOKVICA 4 experimenting with all the boundless possibilities open to them. This book was designed for beginners, for people who had not so far been involved in drawing, and not burdened with education at all. It was this kind of youth that filled the Soviet secondary and higher educational institutions in the 1920s. The more amazing is Cherninov’s task that he brought up on himself. His architectural fantasies have not lost their nutritive power to this day and serve a powerful source of inspiration. Publications like this were very unusual, since for the previous fifteen years, modern art had been used to express slogans, manifestoes, and statements of principle. The essence of Chernikhov’s first book, as well as the remaining unnoticed by critics, was revolutionary in relation to the academic school of architectural drawing, which he himself passed. Not recognized by contemporaries, a unique textbook on the development of spatial thinking has not lost its significance even today. Later, he was reproached in the formalistic approach, the poor presentation of the theory but the graphics were always praised. $2,900 02 [UKRAINIAN PHOTOMONTAGE] Za robitnyche zhytlo [i.e. For Workers’ Dwelling]. #1-5, 6/7, 8, 9/10 for 1931. Kharkiv: Ukrzhitlospilka, 1931. Overall 8 issues. 23,5x17 cm. In original illustrated wrappers: #1-5 with constructivist composition; #6/7, 8, 9/10 with constructivist composition and printed illustration. Rubbed, minor fragments of cover paper lost (#1-2) and stains occasionally (#1, 9/10). Issues were disbound, the covers detached from the blocks. Worldcat doesn’t Extremely rare set of issues for 1931. Print run varied in 2500- track this edition. 2700 copies. in Ukrainian. Striking constructivist design of issues features photomontage double-page spread (#3), combining faces of workers with houses and factories, full-page photomontage (#8) devoted to first Five-Year plan, as well as spectacular layout itself. The cover design was produced by Abram Starchevsky (1897-1967), a graphic artist and poster designer known for his. work. in visual propaganda. In the following year, he was entrusted to design the Dnieper Dam opening ceremony. One of the curious solutions was to put the photograph of children visiting Kiev rabbit house on the front cover, turning the horizontal picture vertically BOOKVICA 5 No 02 (#9/10). Besides, artists Iu. Mur, F. Belen and Shcheglov, photographer V. Arskii were attracted to magazine design as well. This magazine was published in 1926-1933 covering issues of housing construction for workers. The edition promoted communal dwelling, healthy and socialist lifestyle for women with work on factories, educational courses, collaboration with factory-kitchen and kindergarten. Each issue is richly illustrated with photographs of 1920s civil and industrial buildings in the different Ukrainian cities. Due to the low print-run and quality of paper, this edition is practically unknown and unfindable. $3,500 BOOKVICA 6 No 02 BOOKVICA 7 No 03 03 [SOVIET ARCHITECTURE: GINZBURG, KHIGER AND SEMENOV] Voprosy arkhitektury: Sbornik statei [i.e. Architecture Issues: A Collection of Articles]. [Moscow]: Izogiz, 1935. 208 pp.: ill. 30x21,5 cm. In original printed wrappers. Covers slightly soiled and spine chipped, otherwise a very good and internally clean copy. Worldcat locates A valuable piece of a historical evidence on Moscow copies in NYPL, reconstruction of 1935, Ginzburg’s constructivist project of Moscow- Princeton, Michigan, Donbass Highway and Khiger’s civil housing critics (communal houses). Getty, Columbia First and only edition. One of 6000 copies. Illustrated and Cornell Universities. throughout with black and white photographs, plans and drawings. Wrappers and title page by I.F. Rerberg (1892-1957), master of the Soviet wrapper design. The collection was published by the Union of Soviet Architects (the union was formed in 1932 after the demolition of all other architectural unions). It’s interesting that in the preface it is stated that a few statements from the authors are controversial (regarding historical aspects) but they were not removed to generate a healthy creative discussion. The edition is divided into two sections - a historical part includes works on Egyptian architecture, sculpture in architecture, architecture and planning of Versailles Park, but most valuable articles in the second part on architectural reconstruction of Moscow (by BOOKVICA 8 Vladimir Semenov), architectural design of Moscow-Donbass Railroad (by famous Soviet architect Moisei Ginzburg), problems of civil housing on Soviet architecture (by Roman Khiger, architecture critic and writer). “Moscow must become the best city in the world” - that was the intent of a massive reconstruction planned in 1935. It was the first complex reconstruction plan of Moscow. Semenov was one of the architects responsible for the General plan. In his article he describes the problems, tasks and aims, gives statistical data but the most interesting part is a short analysis of 7 competition projects by Le Corbusier, Ernst May, Hannes Meyer, Nikolai Ladovsky and others. For every project a plan is given. For example, Le Corbusier’s plan was rejected because he wanted to redo the existing radial-circular system of the city and create a new one according to his urban views, and the main point of the General plan was to keep the existing system and improve it. None of the competition’s projects announced earlier was recognized as sufficiently convincing to become the basis of the future real plan for the reconstruction of Moscow. Semenov and another responsible for the final plan architect Sergei Chernyshev were consulted by many eminent architects, including constructivists Nikolaev, Vesnin brothers, Kolli. The city’s shape was improved and became more clean by the end of the decade, and that look was unchanged for many decades. This article is very important as one can see what Moscow could have been looked like and what it was supposed to look like according to architect of the General plan, what they had in mind when planning the new look of the capital. Simple yet striking designs by Moisei Ginzburg for Moscow- Donbass Railroad stand out in this edition. In the article the architect stated that was a completely new task for Soviet architecture. Ginzburg with such architects like Vesnin brothers, Golosov, Nikolaev, Ladovsky (all from the Union) started to work on the project in 1933. The most difficult thing, he said, is the achievement of integrity and architectural unity of all structures. The article provides wonderful constructivist designs of stations, technical departures, apartment houses, roadblocks, road houses, dorms (communal houses), dining rooms. Khiger gives a detailed analysis of civil housing starting from pre-Revolutionary buildings and discussing reconstructive period of the second half of 1920s - search for a new forms of housing due to a new socialist alteration of the day to day life. $1,500 BOOKVICA 9 04 [TECHNIQUE OF STADIUM CONSTRUCTION] Zverintsev, S. Arkhitektura sportivnykh sooruzhenii [i.e. Architecture of Sports Constructions]. Moscow: Vsesoiuznaia Akademiia Arkhitektury, 1938. 256 pp.: ill. 25x18 cm. In original blue cloth with colored lettering on front cover and spine. Near fine. First and only edition. One of 5000 copies.