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[PHOTOMONTAGE] Cordelia. Գնացքը Փրկող Աղջիկը: Պատմվածք / Gnats’k’y P’rkogh Aghjiky: Patmvatsk’ [i.e. The Girl Who Saved The Train: A Short Story] / translated by Karen Mikaelian

Item #2203

Moscow: Pet-hrat (Tip. Gosizdata SSSR Armenii), 1924. 16 pp.: ill. 25x17,5 cm. 1 of 2000 copies.

In original photomontage wrappers with the word ‘Girl’ in Armenian printed between the red and green lines in the center. The edges of the front wrapper are darkened, otherwise near fine. In Armenian.

A fine example of the use of photomontage in a book, printed in the national language.
The story by Italian writer Virginia Tedeschi-Treves (pseudonym Cordelia, 1849-1916) is dedicated to a girl, who was born in the family of stationmaster in a shed next to a railroad and help a train to avoid a crushing alerting the train driver that the bridge ahead of the train has collapsed.
The book came out in ‘School library’ series and was printed in Moscow in the print shop, dedicated to the production of Armenian language literature.
The artist Boris Ioganson (1893-1972) has credited with designing the book – he is best known as one of the main artists of Social Realism in Soviet Art, his monumental works of 1930s-1940s brought him two Stalin awards and a position of the head of the Academy of Art in 1958. However it’s likely that he didn’t know that his illustrations were used in this book – according to the print end, they were received from Mirimanov publishing house, which produced a Russian edition of the same book with Ioganson’s illustrations the same year. The illustrations are naïve and elegant, very different from the usual heavy style of Ioganson that the Soviet public learnt to appreciate in the future. However they are very different from the photomontage on the cover of the book, created by the unknown designer.
Mirimanov’s publishing house, which produced hundreds of different editions of children’s literature over the 1920s, has never used such an advanced illustrating method as photomontage, so why and how Cordelia’s edition in Armenian received its photomontage cover, remain unknown.

Price: $1,850.00