RUSSIAN - Bloomsbury Auctions

Lot 60
Lot 61
Lot 60. KARDOVSKII, Dmitrii Nikolaevich (1866-1943)
(illustrator).
Nevskii Prospekt. St. Petersburg: Kryzhok Liubitelei Russkikh
Izyaschykh Isdanii, 1905. 73 pp. Folio (295 x 210 mm). By
Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol. Printed by R. Golike and A. Vilborg, St.
Petersburg. Rebound in contemporary half leather over marbled
boards’ spine stamped in gilt. Condition: slight abrading to boards,
last gathering loose. Provenance: presented Aleksandr Sergeevich
Ermolov as stated on the limitation leaf.
number 6 of 125 numbered copies from an edition of 150.
An unusually delightful edition of Gogol’s famous story illustrated
by Kardovskii in the period in which it was written.
$3000 – $4000
Lot 61. KHLEBNIKOV, Velimir
[Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov] (1885-1922) and
Valentina Nikiforovna KULAGINA-KLUTSIS (1902-1987)
(illustrator).
Zapisnaya knizhka Velimira Khlebnikova. Sobral i snabdil primechaniyami
A. Kruchenykh [Velimir Khlebnikov’s Notebook. Collected and Supplied
with Notes by A. Krchenykh]. Moscow : Izdanie Vserossiiskogo Soiuza
Poetov, 1925. 32 pp. Small square 8vo (190 x 140 mm). Portrait
frontiispiece. Original tan wrappers designed by V. N. Kulagina-
Klutsis. Condition: small tears to covers.
rare posthumous publication of the great russian
futurist writer and edited by his fellow advocate of the
‘transrational’ kruchenykh. One of 2000 copies. Khlebnikov
was a seminal figure in the Russian Futurist movement and one of
the most influential Russian poets of the modern age. In 1912 he
coined the neologism Budetlyane (Men of the Future), encapsulating
the Futurist ethos in one word. His fellow Futurist poet Aleksei
Kruchenykh edited this notebook after his friend suffered a stroke
and tragically died at the age of 37. MoMA 598.
$1000 – $1500
Lot 62. KIRSANOV, Semen Isaakovich (1906-1972).
Stikhi v stroiu [Verse in the Ranks]. Leningrad: OGIZ, 1932. Panorama
designed by Nikolai Ilin. Folio (285 x 210 mm). Original two-color
photomontage self-wrappers. Condition: wrappers slightly creased
with minor repair at fold.
rare soviet propaganda panorama. one of 5000 copies.
From an early age, Kirsanov wrote poems about the Revolution,
the Red Army and the liquidation of illiteracy. On moving from
Odessa to Moscow, he joined Vladimir Mayakovsky’s “Lef ”
movement. During the 1930s, he wrote propaganda that promoted
the agitational goals of the Soviet goverment. Stikhi v stroiu glorifies
May Day and provides at least one lively marching song. The design
of the foldout with its bold typographical experimentation is a fine
example of Constructivist aesthetics. The only located copy of this
fragile pamphlet in a public institution is in the Russian National
Library in St. Petersburg.
$2000 – $3000
Lot 63. KONDAKOV, Nikodim Pavlovich (1844-1925).
The Russian Icon. Prague: Seminarium Kondakovianum, 1928. Folio
(424 x 322 mm). Title in red and black. 65 mounted colored plates.
Text: stitched, as issued; plates: unbound, as issued, all within a single
cream card portfolio, covers of the portfolio printed in red and gilt.
Condition: light soiling; light spotting and small tears to portfolio.
Kondakov was a Russian historian and a specialist in history of
Byzantine art. He enjoyed a long and distinguished career as an
academic, teaching at the Moscow Art School, the University of
Novorossia and St. Petersburg University. Soon after the revolution
Kondakov emigrated to Bulgaria and then to Prague where he
taught until his death in 1925. He archived a prodigious amount of
Russian art, much of it largely unknown, employing iconographic
principles to their study. Kondakov wrote numerous books on the
history of Ancient Greek, Russian, Georgian and Byzantine art;
and his lectures proved to have an enormous influence upon many
future Russian historians. Icons were cultural artifacts to Kondakov
as much as art objects; his work stresses their position within a larger
historical context. He organized art by region or what he termed a
“common tendency” from which he portrayed an entire epoch.
$1500 – $2000
42 Russian Literature & Art Russian Literature & Art 43
Lot 62
Lot 63