Bookvica

[feat. KHLEBNIKOV AND GURO] Troe [i.e. The Three]

Khlebnikov, V. Kruchenykh, A., Guro, E.

Item #2447

Saint Petersburg: Zhuravl’, [1913]. 96 pp.: ill., music score. 20x19 cm. In original lithographed wrappers; in modern case. Spine and outer edge of some pages restored, some small stains, otherwise very good. Contemporary ink inscription on the front wrapper.

First edition. One of 500 copies.

Three futurists, Velimir Khlebnikov, Elena Guro and Alexei Kruchenykh had thought up to create this book together in the spring of 1913, according to Mikhail Matiushin. Unfortunately, the project was realized after Guro passed away. Cover design and 4 illustrations were created by Kazimir Malevich in memory of Elena Guro. The illustrations reproduce works ‘Crew in Motion’ (in another part of the printrun ‘Grinder’ was published instead), ‘Reaper’, ‘Head of a Peasant Girl’ and, most likely, ‘Grammatics’ (according to V. Polyakov; the work was also identified as ‘Pilot’ by S. Compton). The cover idea was created after Guro’s death in July 1913 and a large comma separated the names of the living. In the title, the artist first applied the principle of cubist shift in the type construction. Later hand-drawn fonts of this type became widespread.
Of Guro’s works, the collection included poems and prose passages published for the first time, including her ‘Finland’. The rest of the collection was divided between V. Khlebnikov and A. Kruchenykh. Khlebnikov published the poem ‘Hadji-Tarkhan’ and two stories from the “hunting” cycle: ‘Nikolai’ and ‘Hunter Usa-Gali’. Kruchenykh published selected poems and a manifesto “New Ways of the Word (Language of the Future is Death to Symbolism)” and short essays on art. Moreover, the book reproduces Matyushin’s introductory music score to the opera “Victory over the Sun”.

Guro and Matyushin founded a publishing house called “Zhuravl” [Crane] in about 1909, since Matyushin, listing publications of “Crane,” also named Guro’s collection of stories “Sharmanka,” which was printed without the name of the publishing house.

MoMA, The Russian Avant-Garde Book, 38. Worldcat tracks paper copies located in Princeton, Columbia, California, John Hopkins Universities, Art Institute of Chicago, Amherst College, NYPL.

Price: $5,000.00