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[CARICATURES BY SOVIET CHILDREN] Detskaya karikatura [i.e. Children’s Caricature]

Moscow: Tsentral’nyy dom khudozhestvennogo vospitaniya detey RSFSR im. A.S. Bubnova, 1934. Item #1146

16 pp.: ill. In original wrappers. Very good, spots on wrappers, pages are loose (lacking staple), marks of rust on the spine, pencil marks and Soviet bookshops’ stamps on the back cover and recto of the back cover, vertical crease.

Extremely scarce limited edition. 1 of 350 copies. Manuscript copyright. Constructivist wrapper design by the Soviet artist, a member of the art community Kumach, and one of the main organizers of IZO studios in the USSR, Dmitry Sobolev (1895-1962).
An extremely rare document of children’s caricature in the Soviet Union.
From the early years of the establishment of the communist state, Soviet schools came to be seen as the center of proletarian culture, and the government spared no effort to involve students in its ideological activity. In an effort to raise ‘responsible Soviet men’ and easily survey the prevailing atmosphere in educational institutions, the Bolsheviks decided to maximize the popularity of caricature through organizing IZO studios for children.
Published in 1934, this book represents an extremely rare document of the activity of two IZO studios of the Zamoskvoretsky and Proletarsky districts of Moscow. The studios were founded by the Soviet artists Dmitry Sobolev (head), P. Krasil’nikov, and A. Malinin in 1933 and included over 100 students from different schools. The edition, which was most likely published for the limited circle of pedagogues at IZO studios, opens with the text focusing on the brief history of children’s caricature in the USSR and gives recommendations for the proper teaching of the subject. The article underlines the importance of introducing students to the best examples of Soviet and foreign caricature by Mayakovsky, Deni, Moor, Lebedev, and Daumier. In the narrative, the author (authors) sets out the most common topics in children’s caricature (international politics, anti-religious themes, regulation of traffic and various topics from children’s lives) and brings together 14 reproductions of works drawn by the students (A. Volkov, F. Kerph, Ivanov, Rogov, etc.) of the studios. The age of the amateur artists varies from 13 to 17. Aside from the aforementioned topics, some of the caricatures reflect difficult conditions in which the studio operated (broken windows, a leaking roof, etc.). Interestingly, the author (authors) states that at first, the studio was raided by homeless children; however, later the studio gained authority and some of the street children joined ranks of the students.
The book was edited by Galina Labunskaya (1893-1970), Soviet artist, pedagogue, and the founder of the Children’s Drawing Museum of the Institute of Art Education of the Russian Academy of Education.

No copies found in Worldcat.

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