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[STEKLOGRAFIIA] Kratkoe rukovodstvo raboty na steklografe [i.e. A Short Manual of Work on Vitreograph]

Ekaterinburg: Gos. izdatel’stvo Ural’skogo oblastnogo ob’edineniia, 1921. Item #1061

32 pp., 7 ills. 17x13 cm. In original illustrated vitreograph wrappers. Some foxing, small tears of the spine, otherwise very good.

Extremely rare provincial edition with no copies in Worldcat.
The earliest manual on planographic vitreography compiled for provincial creators of the mass propaganda posters ‘Okna satiry ROSTA’ (1919-1921). Originated by Mikhail Cheremnykh and Vladimir Mayakovsky, such posters became the most popular and impressive medium of Russian Telegraph Agency (ROSTA) instilling the Communist ideology. During the deficit years of the Civil war, any cheap printmaking technique, such as lithography, was good for reproducing monochrome posters and caricatures.
Unlike the initial vitreography, the steklografiia (lithography on glass) meant using a glass plate as a cliche. By the early 1920s, it wasn’t a new approach in the history of Russian printmaking. In the pre-revolutionary period, it was widespread as a cheap way to reproduce students' notes in universities and schools. Later the technique was admired by avant-garde artists and poets. For instance, the steklografiia was used for printing twenty-four brochures of ‘The Unpublished Khlebnikov: 1916-1921’ (1928-1933).
Although “the glass plate lithography” itself existed many years, this was the first publication where the technique and related chemical reactions were explained in the detailed instruction. The process includes three chemical reactions between two types of ink and two mixtures, alternately coated the glass plate.
The Ural ROSTA initiated planographic vitreography in the fall of 1920. The courses were opened and about 50 people from Petrograd, Vitebsk, Rostov, etc. attended them. The director of courses Levenets was even sent to Moscow to promote the technique in the Central ROSTA. At that time, the local workshop of two presses printed 4000 copies of periodicals, posters per day. For this edition, 6 technical drawings, one illustration, depicting the process of vitreography, as well as covers, were printed by the workshop.
Overall, a fragile brochure and the evidence of a stunning initiative.

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