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[UNDERSTANDING RUSSIAN AVANT-GARDE] Volchie solntse. Kniga stikhov vtoraia [i.e. The Wolf’s Sun. The Second Book of Verse] / futurists ‘Gileya’

Livshits, Benedikt

Item #1257

Moscow: printed by the literary publishers Gileya and Ko. (printed in Kherson in ‘Economia’ typography), 1914. 57, [5], [4], 59-64 pp., 5 ill. 17,7x11,3 cm. One of 480 copies printed. Original printed wrappers. Spine is restored. Very good and clean.
First edition. Very rare. The pivotal edition in understanding Russian avant-garde put together by Benedikt Livshits, David Burliuk and Alexandra Exter, this book was one of the early poetic-visual experiments of the 1910s.
The most influential avant-garde group of the South of Russia ‘Gileya’ was established in 1910 and produced some of the first editions later regarded as the start of the avant-garde movement. The literary part was overseen by Velimir Khlebnikov and Benedikt Livshits.
‘Gileya’ has collaborated with the most of the important progressive artists and writers at the time - Alexei Kruchionykh, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Vassily Kamenskiy, Iosif Shkolnik, Pavel Filonov, Mikhail Matiushin and Kazimir Malevich.
The founder of the group was Benedikt Livshits (1887-1938), a Ukrainian-born futurist poet, who was in the centre of the most avant-garde initiatives in the 1910s. He was arrested in 1937 and executed in 1938 after the false allegations.
A colour plate by M. Vassilieva on the frontispiece, a plain plate by Alexandra Exter, four plates by David Burliuk printed in blue (pp. 60-64) containing a catalogue of futurist publications from 1908 to 1914.

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