mikoyan anastas text (1 Ergebnisse)

Moscow: OGIZ-IZOGIZ, 1936. Folio (38 ? 25.5 cm). Original embossed tan and blue cloth over boards, with photomontage endpapers; [250] pp. Photographs, maps, diagrams, drawings throughout, many in color and some folding. With original printed dedication card laid in: "To the delegate of the Emergency 8th All-Union Congress of the Soviets." Light soil to boards; inconspicuous restoration to front hinge; corners lightly scuffed; small tear to front endpaper; lacking the original card slipcase; else about very good. An iconic photomontage album celebrating the Soviet food industry, designed by El Lissitzky and Sophie Lissitzky-K?ppers. Gifted to the delegates of the Emergency 8th All-Union Congress of the Soviets in December 1936, the text excerpts are taken from a speech delivered by the Soviet Commissar of Trade, Anastas Mikoyan. The endpapers for the volume are lavish two-page photomontage spreads of agricultural plenty, with numerous illustrations throughout the album showcasing the industrial production of eggs, milk, cheese, butter, bread, meat, fish, fruits, and vegetables, as well as sugar, candy, and confections, tea, tobacco, alcohol, perfume, soap, and cosmetics. The album also shows the industrial infrastructure of food production, including maps with the locations of collective farms, large-scale refrigeration facilities, meatpacking factories, fish processing plants, and sugar factories, among others. Food safety and hygiene are emphasized throughout with images of factory workers in laboratory white coats, as well as mandatory manicures for workers of some food production factories. A large section dedicated to the Stakhanovites of the food industry shows individual portraits of workers and shares production success stories. Conceived in 1935 as a visual aid to the speech on the Stakhanovite movement in the food industry given by Anastas Mikoyan, the volume was released almost a year later in November 1936, beset by difficulties the designers encountered with the censorship. The delay in publication necessitated an interim volume titled ?Listy iz al?boma? [Leaves from the album] which was larger in format but much reduced in content, lacking the maps and the double page spreads. The present volume would serve as inspiration for Soviet Union?s most famous cookbook, the 1939 ?The Book of Tasty and Healthy Food? (Kniga o vkusnoi i zdorovoi pishche). A project similarly spearheaded by Mikoyan, the book signaled a return to domestic cooking after a decade of promoting communal eating at worker canteens. The album is especially valuable as a document of the creative process and collaboration of the avant-garde masters El Lissitzky and Sophie Lissitzky-K?ppers. The couple collaborated on other projects prior to this album, but as Peter Nisbet points out, because Lissitzky was undergoing treatment in a sanatorium during the planning of this album, the entire design process was carried out through letters, which included sketches and drafts (later published). "For no other graphic design undertaking of the 1930s does there exist such detailed (although, of course, still incomplete) evidence of the progress of design and collaboration, with clues to the roles of the various personalities involved, the tactical maneuvering undertaken by the designers, and the relationship of formal decisions to the ideological content" (See: Perloff and Reed eds. ?Situating El Lissitzky: Vitebsk, Berlin, Moscow?, pp. 211?234). One of the central conflicts with the publisher was the cover for the album which was to be ?made out of two sheets of celluloid ? one opaque and white, the other transparent and blue green (to be placed over an embossed card) ? and an album case, for which Lissitzky wanted to experiment with "woven straw or tree fibers?, design decisions that were supposed to "transform the book into a sculpture." As pointed out by Karasik, the final cover does resemble a ?marble slab?, but lacks the tactile qualities the designers intended. Karasik, The Soviet Photobook 1920?1941, p. 402. One of 6000 copies. Rare. As of April 2025, KVK, OCLC show only one copy in North America. The shorter portfolio version is held by four institutions worldwide, three in North America.