GONCHAROVA, Natalia

Natalia Goncharova lithograph as published in ‘Hermit’, 1913 (7)

Description

Natalia Goncharova lithograph as published in Pustynniki; Pustynnitsa. Dve poemy (Hermits; Hermitess: Two Poems), text by Kruchenykh. Published by G. L. Kuz’min and S. D. Dolinskii, Moscow in 1913, in a small edition size of only 480 copies, many of which have not survived due to the quality of the paper. The  sheet is discoloured and has become yellow, else very good.

Sheet size: 7.25 x 5.75 inches  (183 x 145mm)

There is Russian manuscript text in ink on verso which is a translation of the poem::

The only way of getting Poles,

To honour the peace deal they have signed

Is by tightly clenching our proletarian fists,

And putting carefree jubilation to one side.

The Soviet Polish war started in 1920, so presumably the inscriptions dated from the early 1920s.

Item details

The album/ book titled Pustynniki; Pustynnitsa. Dve poemy (Hermits; Hermitess: Two Poems), was illustrated with sixteen lithographs, including cover, by Natalia Goncharova, the text by Aleksei Kruchenykh . Printed by S. Mukharski  and published by G. L. Kuz’min and S. D. Dolinskii in Moscow in 1913.

‘Natalia Goncharova’s lithographs are executed in a “primitivist” style based on traditional Russian icon painting that inspired numerous contemporary painters and printmakers.

The curious arrangement of the text and illustrations at right angles to each other suggests that the book may have been intended to be produced in a smaller format. Aleksei Kruchenykh’s Hermits consists of a pair of lengthy poems, consciously written in the style of Russian folk-poetry, which recounts life in a hermitage. The author evokes in surreal literary images the repressed blasphemous and erotic inclinations of the residents.’ Quote from ‘Arts Mia’ Web Site