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[FACSIMILE - MAYAKOVSKY’S LAST LIFETIME EXHIBITION] 20 let raboty Mayakovskogo. Katalog vystavki [i.e. 20 Years of Mayakovsky’s Work. Exhibition Catalogue]

Item #2858

Moscow: Kniga, 1973. 2-28, [1] pp. 19,3x16,7 cm. Publisher’s printed wrappers. Wrappers slightly worn, but otherwise near fine.

Scarce. 1 of 1,000 copies. Text in Russian. Edited by E. Kuz’mina.

A rare 1973 facsimile edition of the ephemeral stencil-printed catalogue originally produced in 1930 for the exhibition 20 Years of Mayakovsky’s Work, held in Moscow at the House of the Federation of Soviet Writers (FOSP). This was the last major exhibition of Vladimir Mayakovsky’s work held during his lifetime, conceived by the poet himself as a public report to the Party and the Soviet people.

The exhibition presented two decades of Mayakovsky’s prolific creative activity across poetry, literature, visual art, advertising, and agitprop. Its opening attracted an audience far exceeding the capacity of the venue: a hall designed for approximately 200–250 people was filled with an estimated 300–350 visitors, predominantly young. The exhibition took place amid an increasingly hostile campaign against Mayakovsky, and only a handful of prominent writers, including Alexander Bezymensky and Viktor Shklovsky, attended; representatives of the official literary institutions were notably absent.

The present edition was published in 1973 on the occasion of the 80th anniversary of Mayakovsky’s birth and accompanied the reconstruction of the original 1930 exhibition in the halls of the Union of Soviet Writers in Moscow. It reproduces the original catalogue and provides a comprehensive inventory of 374 exhibits, encompassing Mayakovsky’s books, magazines, newspapers, posters, ROSTA Windows, advertisements, albums, and other examples of his literary and visual output. Especially important is the facsimile of Mayakovsky’s 1930 letter donating the entire exhibition to the USSR Public Library.

Overall, a valuable documentary record of Mayakovsky’s final lifetime exhibition.

Worldcat shows 1 copy of the edition at New York Public Library.

Price: $350.00