RUSSIAN - Bloomsbury Auctions

Lot 57
Lot 58
Lot 57. JSZELENOF, Nikolai [Nikolai Ivanovich
ISTSELENOV] (1891 - 1981).
Moskauer Typen. [Moscow Types] Berlin: Trirema Verlag, [1922].
11 pp. 8vo (230 x 155 mm). 11 lithographs (including title page).
Original cloth-backed lithographed tan boards with the original
black silk ties intact. Condition: occasional spotting to covers, back
hinge reglued, spine neatly repaired.
number 26 of 100 copies and signed and numbered by the
artist in red ink. quick pithy studies of the orator, the
red guard, various peddlers and other contemporary
soviet street types. Istselenov studied painting and received an
architectural degree in 1917. He emigrated to Finland about 1920
and illustrated Russian books and designed for the Russian theater
while living in Berlin from 1921 until 1925. He then settled in
Paris where he continued to work as an artist and architect. Not in
MoMA.
$2000 – $3000
Lot 58. KAMENSKY, Vasily Vasilevich (1884-1961) and
Aleksandr Mikhailovich RODCHENKO (1891-1956)
(illustrator).
Lunost Mayakovskogo [Mayakovsky’s Youth]. Tiflis: Zakkniga, 1931.
84 pp. 8vo (180 x 130 mm). Constructivist designs by Rodchenko.
Original paper on lithographic cardboard covers in red, gray and
black. Condition: joints repaired with split at tail of rear board with
slight loss; extremities rubbed, small stamps and ink marks on rear
pastedown and endpaper, unobtrusive scattered marginalia in red
and black pencil.
Includes a drawing of Kamensky by Mayakovsky and five printed
announcements of Futurist activities, two of which are integrated
with the text. Kamensky’s frienship with Mayakovsky extends back
at least as far as 1917 when the two, together with David Burliuk,
organized The Poets’ Cafe in Moscow. Not in MoMA.
$1800 – $2500
Lot 59. [KANDINSKY, Wassily (1866-1944)].
Trudy vserossiiskago sezda khudozhnikov v Petyrograd Dekabr 1911-Yanvar 1912 [All-Russian Congress of Artists in Petrograd from December 1911
to January 1912]. Petrograd: [Golike and A. Vilborg, n.d.]. 3 volumes. Folio (350 x 253mm. and smaller). Plates, occasional illustrations.
Later grey cloth with original paper wrappers mounted on the upper and lower covers (volumes I and III) or orginal wrappers (volume II).
Condition: light overall toning, occasional small marginal tears to volume II; light soiling to volumes I and III, volume II with stitching broken,
covers detached and lightly soiled, backstrip lacking.
first publication in russian of kandinsky’s seminal essay “on the spiritual in art.” With addresses by Alexandre Benois, Ivan
Yakovlevich Bilibin, Nicolai Ivan Kulbin and others. The All-Russian Congress of Artists in 1911 combined both the new and the old. It
held the first exhibition of restored icons; and Kandinsky’s famous statement “O dukhovnom v iskusstve (zhivopis)” [“On the Spiritrual in
Art (Painting)”] was presented in December. It was published for the first time in Russian here in the first volume of the official proceedings
of the Congress, pp. 47-52. Kandinsky passionately argued for nonobjective art and thus defined the modern concept of abstract art. Franz
Marc arranged for the essay’s publication in Munich and an English translation came out in 1914. Not in MoMA. (3)
$6000 – $8000
40 Russian Literature & Art Russian Literature & Art 41
Lot 59