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[SEREGIN & ISAEV’S PHOTOMONTAGES] Lodka-vezdekhodka [i.e. The Universal Boat]

Kassil, Lev.

Item #963

2nd edition. Moscow: Detgiz, 1935. 32 pp.: ill. 22x18 cm. Original lithographed wrappers. Spine is slightly restored. Otherwise very good. Stamp ‘Printed in the Soviet Union’ on the title page. Design of the book by Seregin and Isaev.
The book is a representative of the sub-genre in Soviet photo books dedicated to the technology. Alongside with the books, dedicated to tractors, combiners, planes, this particular one is the photo-anthem to the hydroglider. The machine designed by Avtodor and Soyuzsvod, are pictured as the metaphor on the whole USSR: ‘Our young Soviet country is just like a hydroglider. It goes against the old currents. It’s not afraid of the enemy resistance. It overtakes all other countries and enters the new life’. The hydroglider could have traveled through shallow waters as well as the swamps and originally was designed to help emergency services, firefighters and deliver post. The peak of the hydroglider construction in Soviet Union occurred in 1939, when the giant two-motor hydroglider ‘Express’ was built, that could carry 125 people and resembled the giant plane ‘Maxim Gorky’ of the same years.
There’s little known about the duo of artists Seregin & Isaev, except the books they have designed. They have worked together on the number of editions for the juvenile audience, contributing to the genre of photo-book in the mid- and late-1930s. Other works by them include ‘Strana pobediteley. 1935’, ‘Metropoliten, 1935’ etc. In this book the artist pursued the goal of constructing the book like hydroglider itself: fast and elegant. It’s achieved by the different layouts of the photos on every page, the single tone of all the illustrations and the variation of font sizes. In photomontages the retouch is used extensively, especially on the faces of the children.
In the publisher’s imprint Seregin & Isaev are called ‘the authors of photo-compositions’ that gives the best description of the role of the designers in the publication.

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