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[SOVIET ARMENIA IN ART] Vystavka kartin zasluzhennogo deiatelia iskusstv Pavla Kuznetsova [i.e. Exhibition of Works by Honored Art Worker, Pavel Kuznetsov]

Item #1759

Moscow: Gos. muzei iziashchnykh iskusstv: Tip. gaz. “Pravda”, 1931. 19, [20] pp.: ill., 1 ill.. 16x11 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Rusty staples, otherwise mint.

First and only edition. One of 1500 copies. The foreword is written by A. Lunacharsky.

A less-known catalog of a lifetime exhibition of modernist artist Pavel Kuznetsov (1878-1968) held at the State Museum of Fine Arts. Two years earlier, works by the artist were exhibited at the
Tretyakov gallery, with a similar catalog published for it. Unlike that edition, this one was printed with the cover design featuring Kuznetsov’s work “Tuff Processing”. A colored reproduction of a work
“Construction in Armenia” is printed on an insert. According to the artist, a 1930 trip to Armenia gave impetus to a number of paintings in which he tried to express “collective pathos of monumental
construction, where people, machines, animals and nature merge into one powerful chord”. The works of the late 1920s – early 1930s were the last, third peak of Kuznetsov’s art. The exhibition consisted of more than 100 exhibits, and a significant amount of works were devoted to socialist construction sites in Armenia. The catalog lists all names of paintings, water colors and graphic works. Local cities were built of tuff – stone of various colors – and the artist frequently depicted this material.

Apart from the foreword, the edition includes a critical article “Construction of Soviet Armenia in Works by Pavel Kuznetsov” by historian-orientalist Ilya Borozdin and a short essay “To Construction”
by Pavel Kuznetsov himself. The catalog reproduces 10 black-and-white works from the exhibition, including “Construction of a Club”, “Cotton Sorting”, “Builders”, “Pushball”.

Worldcat shows copies located in Princeton and Massachusetts Universities, the MET, NYPL.

Price: $750.00