Bookvica

[KULTURA PUBLISHING HOUSE] Vse po mestam! Zadom napered [i.e. Everybody Comes to Order! Backwards]

Sakonskaia, N.

Item #2596

Kyiv: Kultura, 1930. 8 pp.: ill. 22,5 × 16,5 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Spine and tears of covers restored, otherwise very good and clean copy.

This early Soviet children’s book is devoted to children’s interaction with clothes and accessories and consists of two small poems. The first one is about a boy gradually putting gloves on, finger by finger. In the second one, a little girl gets a new dress but can’t fasten dress hooks on the back. She asks her younger brother, dog and a grandmother for help, but in vain – finally, she turns the dress backwards.
The work was commissioned by the early Soviet Ukrainian publishing house ‘Kultura’ that worked in the 1920s-1930s. The organization was equipped with high-quality printing machinery and attracted skilled Ukrainian artists for collaboration. All the books are notable examples of contemporary tendencies. Design was created by Kyiv artist Vladimir Kozlovsky (1867–1930). He studied in the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture under Alexei Savrasov and Vasilii Polenov. After returning home to Kyiv, Kozlovsky joined the Kyiv Society for the Encouragement of the Arts and became one of the founders of the so-called “Spring Exhibitions” in Kyiv which were held since 1892. In early Soviet Ukraine, Kozlovsky
was engaged in children’s book design for the Kultura publishing house of the Kyiv-Pechat’ Trust.

In this book, his illustrations are more essential than the verses below. Following early Soviet trends, the artist depicts characters and their items arranged into comic strips or characters drawn freely without background – with their skin colored by general colors of large plates.

Worldcat shows the only copy located in Princeton University.

Price: $2,500.00