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[SIEGE OF LENINGRAD] V te dni. Leningradskii al’bom [i.e. At Those Days. The Leningrad Album]

Tikhonov, N., Pakhomov, A.

Item #2216

Moscow; Leningrad: Detgiz, 1946. 47 pp.: ill. 34,5x27 cm. In original illustrated cardboards. Rubbed, otherwise very good.

This well-illustrated large-format book displays residents of Leningrad during the Siege, as they were seen by artist Alexei Pakhomov (1900-1973).
In 1915, he enrolled in the Central School of Technical Drawing of Baron A. L. Stieglitz where he got into the workshop of N. Tyrsa. After serving in the army he moved to the workshop of V. Lebedev. Then Pakhomov embarked on teaching at the Kadnikov school. Also, he studied in the Petrograd VKHUTEIN in 1920-1925 under A. Savinov, S. Chekhonin, V. Shukhaev. Having gone through modernism, he, nevertheless, turned to work from nature, performing numerous sketches. In fact, Pakhomov hadn’t initially appreciated pencil sketches, considering them something auxiliary for future serious works. However, Tyrsa and Lebedev were able to convince him that an expressive pencil sketch could also be an independent work. As some other apprentices of Lebedev, Pakhomov began to work in the Children’s Department of GIZ in 1925. He became one of the leading artists of children’s book graphics in Leningrad in the 1920-1940s. In the 1930s, Pakhomov increasingly performed black and white illustrations. He was looking for an extremely concise solution by means of graphics and achieved high results. In 1936, he managed to apply offset printing to pencil illustrations.
This edition is based on Pakhomov’s series ‘Leningrad Chronicle’ and contains 22 full-page illustrations. During World War II, he didn’t leave the besieged city for a single day, recorded its history and drew the city residents. Most of them were women and children mastering earlier unfamiliar and hard occupations. Young girls learned to build fortifications, repair roofs, dig anti-tank ditches, transfer logs through the swamp, carry the wounded on the back, dig people out of the ruins of collapsed buildings, and much else. Instead of games on the street, girls and boys fled to factories to make weapons for the Army.
The design of covers, endpapers, title page and headlines were created by female artist Vera Zenkovich (1906–1985). She graduated from Leningrad VKHUTEIN in 1930 and since then she had been engaged in book design. During the war, she lived and worked in Leningrad. In particular, she took part in the design of propaganda panels for the 25th anniversary of October in 1942. Zenkovich is the author of numerous works dedicated to Leningraders and the besieged city.
The artists collaborated with Stalinist writer Nikolai Tikhonov (1896–1979). During the war, the writer worked in the Political Administration of the Leningrad Front. He created essays, short stories, articles, poems and issued leaflets with well written and influential texts against Nazis.

Worldcat shows copies in LoC and Princeton, Cornell, Wisconsin, Rochester Universities.

Price: $750.00