За нашу дружбу! Allan Gamborg and his updated Soviet Digital Art website.

Regular readers will recall that over the years, I've repeatedly doffed my уша́нка (ushanka -- it's the furry cap) in the general direction of Allan Gamborg.

It's hard to believe 33 years have passed since I first met Allan, Kim Andersen and Kim Wiesener during the rambunctious summer of '87. These three Danes of the apocalypse have been artfully weaving in and out of my travel narratives ever since, as during this famous escapade (in Allan's own words):

For example, I still think of the evening in that Belgian beer place (2000?), where all got complete rat-assed and the party just dissolved in utter chaos.

Ah, those were the daze.

Allan has lived in Moscow for more than two decades, and somewhere around his third or fourth career in the workaday world he assumed yet another identity: purveyor and advocate of Soviet-era art and artists.

You need not have an opinion about Vladimir Putin, or be a dirty rotten Commie, to enjoy Allan's web site. You merely must appreciate art.

Today an update arrived.

Dear Friends,

I hope you are all well and safe in these turbulent times.

I have been spending a significant part of the time in self isolation updating my art database with photos, descriptions and artists’ biographies.

All this material you can find online - art works and descriptions - for about 900 (mainly Soviet) artists.

If you have a free minute (or some vacant days), and wish to relax with some art – please visit.

Artist Portfolios

Best wishes,

Allan

Here's the full story.

This website is dedicated to Soviet Art and Socialist Realism in the 20th century. We feature a large number of Soviet and socialist fine arts and posters as well as applied arts and design of that period.

The artists featured were active in the Soviet Union from the 1920s through the 1970s, and their works cover Russian avant-garde, socialist realism as well as the non-official underground art of the 1960s and 1970s.

The collection contains Soviet fine arts, mural designs, graphics, prints and USSR posters, and a unique assortment of applied arts, textile and fashion designs, and tapestries of the 1950s and 1960s. We also show a number of theater designs, including costumes, set designs and curtains. Another specialty of the gallery is children's book illustrations of the 1950s and 1960s.

Thematically, we often focus on Soviet art works and posters telling stories about people and their city or village, work, industry, culture, politics, and works of art illustrating the era and its history as a whole. Specific topics include Soviet agriculture, sports, theater and ballet.

The artists featured were taught by the most famous artists of the late 19th and the early 20th century, and studyed at the most prestigious art schools of the Soviet Union at the time: The VKhuTeMas, the Polygraphical Institute, the Surikov Institute, the Repin Institute, the MIPIDI, and the Moscow Textile Institute.

Most artists featured led a “double” artistic life. On the one hand, they were all members of the state controlled Artists’ Union, being on the state budget of the Soviet Ministry of Culture, producing Soviet art works in support of Soviet ideology, socialist realism, propaganda posters, etc. On the other hand, they took every opportunity to paint for themselves, i.e. painting themes and in styles they personally preferred. Working on genres such as landscape, cityscape and still-life was a manifestation of artists' independence from official ideology.

Many of these works of art were lost to the dust of artists' studios. Here we aim at showing both aspects of the artists’ works.

ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to traditional Danish lunch in Copenhagen, September 1989.

There was a faint glow, and an aura of something flickering amid the barely discernible sound of people conversing in an alien language. Apparently a herd of elephants reposed somewhere to the rear, occasionally bellowing fair warning.

Flat on my back and shirtless, but providentially still wearing pants, I felt sore all over, like I’d just finished running a marathon or boxing a couple rounds with Mike Tyson.

It seemed I was marooned in a foreign land, emerging from a mysterious coma, but in fact the coma was self-induced and the destination purposeful, even if the precise whys and wherefores remained elusive.

24 hours earlier I’d spent a final evening in rigid East Berlin, drinking voluminous quantities of Wernesgruner Pils with my friend and workmate Jeff prior to departing on the overnight train to Copenhagen.

In the company of a few dozen westerners, we had spent three weeks in the German Democratic Republic (otherwise known as East Germany) working as employees of the East Berlin parks department, followed by another week of quasi-touristic revelry in Rostock and Dresden.

Now it was September 2, and I’d been in the East Bloc for the better part of three months, first in Czechoslovakia, then the USSR, and finally East Germany. Experiencing communism in these places was like taking a graduate-level university course in sheer weirdness. It was exhilarating and exhausting in equal measure, and I was ready for a wee bit of exuberant capitalism in Copenhagen.

Up to this point, my 1989 travels had been largely routine given their specialized locale, and nothing had gone seriously wrong, but the law of averages was about to catch up with me over the three-month coda to come, and it all began that final evening in East Berlin.

I’d sensibly checked my backpack at the rail station’s left luggage desk, all the easier to drink beer unencumbered until the time came to reclaim the bag before boarding the train for Copenhagen. It was a tremendous buzz kill to return to the desk at 21.00 and discover that I’d lost the claim ticket.

If you think the TSA’s invasive bureaucracy is bad here in L'America during these times of permanent terrorism alert, try imagining the 1940s-era, by-the-book-you-idiot-foreigner approach to verifying one’s identity and ownership of belongings amid Stasi-infested East Berlin, on top of being royally intoxicated and on the verge of missing the train.

When did my entry visa expire, anyway? If I didn’t leave the country ahead of the deadline, there might be … shall we say, difficulties.

It worked out, but only after somersaulting through numerous hoops and signing one document after the next to the dull accompanying soundtrack of cascading rubber stamps. Sweating, I regained the bag and boarded the train on time. It was a few hours north to Warnemünde, then onto a rail ferry across the Baltic to Gedser, Denmark and the final link to Copenhagen.

East Germans may have been dirty rotten commies, but they hadn’t neglected the utility of a profitable duty-free shop on the boat. I took the fateful opportunity to score an inexpensive bottle each of Zubrowka Buffalo Grass Vodka, an infamous Polish treat, and Korn, the latter a colorless moonshine from East Germany made not from corn, but rye and wheat.

I’d be an American bearing gifts.

Drinkers learn early that it’s challenging to move directly from inebriation to hangover without the grace period of intervening sleep. Absent sleepers or couchettes, my “bed” on the East Berlin-Copenhagen route was an upright 2nd class seat in a cramped compartment, and shuteye was hard to find. Naturally the timetable refused to acknowledge the condition of my condition, and I was released into Copenhagen’s spacious central station at 8:00 a.m.

The adrenaline kicked in. The first priority was to change money; purchasing coffee with my fresh kroner, I found a pay phone to call Little Kim for instructions. Unexpectedly a disembodied voice answered in what sounded like Boris Karloff’s dialect of English.

He turned out to be the chosen representative of my friend’s answering service. Remember those? Stammering, I identified myself and was told to relax; I definitely was expected, but because Mr. Wiesener had an “emergency” the plan had been changed. Rather, I was given the number of a bus and a street address, which brought me to the apartment of Allan Gamborg, who laughed when I asked the nature of Little Kim’s emergency.

“He has a family gathering, and he’ll come by later. We have more important things to do, because (Big) Kim Andersen is coming for lunch.”

He paused: “For Danish lunch.”

The slightest curl of a tiny smile could be detected on the infamous sandbagger Allan’s face. Much later, when it was far too late to escape my fate, I understood the nature of their planned ambush.

It was 9:00 a.m. at the latest, and I had no idea what was about to happen, although it all began gently enough. Allan and I went to a bakery down the street and bought pastries, returning to his flat for more coffee. Big Kim phoned, and Allan issued foraging orders.

Looking around Allan’s pad, food could be seen stacked in all corners of his tidy, small kitchen, or at least in those spaces not otherwise filled with bottles of beer, liquor and more bottles of beer, to which my two doses of liquor were gleefully added.

We were expecting a huge crowd, right?

---

It was my third visit to Copenhagen in 1989, and it was gratifying to have befriended these three wonderful fellows, all of whom lived there at the time. However the concept of “Danish lunch” was as yet unfamiliar to me. To better explain it, here’s a random 2019 offering from the Restaurant Kronborg.

The “Traditional Danish Lunch” is the classic Danish lunch menu, like the one your grandparents would eat (had they been Danish), pure comfort food and a great way to experience the intangible Danish concept of ‘hygge’ (best translatable as ‘coziness’).

The lunch is served on platters in three servings

• Old-fashioned pickled herring with onions and capers
• Curried herring with ’smiling egg’, onions and capers
• Pan-fried fillet of plaice with Greenlandic shrimps and ‘dillnaise’
• Kronborg’s gravlax with fresh herbs and lime crème

xxx

• Liver paté with bacon, beetroots and mushrooms
• Roast pork pickled red cabbage and cucumber
• Roast beef with ‘remoulade’, crisp onions, horseradish and pickled cucumber

xxx

• Very mature cheese served with rum, meat jelly and onions

Includes rye bread, white bread, butter and duck lard

That’s a solid and delicious overview, indeed.

In 1999, a decade after today’s tale of Allan’s home-cooked version of traditional Danish lunch, Barrie Ottersbach and I were joined by "Boris" Lawrence as Big Kim took the four of us to Danish lunch at a local joint near the harbor.

In my memory the eggs, fish, and beef were raw (not a complete exaggeration, by the way); most other items were pickled or adorned with horseradish; the beer and schnapps were consumed with an atypically judicious temperament -- we were older by then -- and the early afternoon hours soon passed into late evening, enlivened by a long chat with a pair of crusty ancient Danish merchant mariners.

In its more respectable form, Danish lunch surely is a civilized institution, 1989’s affair notwithstanding.

---

The American and Big Kim.

Sunday, September 3, 1989.

Big Kim arrived bearing even more food and alcohol, and it was determined that Little Kim would drop by later in the day. I may have been sleepless and a tad hungover, but I was looking forward to the mounting spread.

Allan’s Danish lunch began with salty snacks and a crate or two of serviceable mainstream Danish lager, including Tuborg Gold and perhaps Carlsberg’s Sort Guld (Black Gold). Allan didn’t stick to the exact script, but offered multiple courses of fish, eggs, meats and a main course of chicken.

As the meal escalated, so did the consumption of alcohol, which soon shifted from beer to “the hard stuff,” beginning with akvavit -- was it the Aalborg brand? -- before moving to my bottles of Korn and Zubrovka,

Remember, there were only three of us.

The vodka came last, as a chaser for chocolate ice cream. It was dark outside at this juncture, and I’d surrendered any concept of time. I was stuffed full of food, beer and booze, and the ice cream played the role of Monty Python’s wafer-thin mint.

I recall the room spinning, and being helped to the orange-upholstered couch in the living room of Allan’s small domicile. There is a vague recollection of becoming violently ill, miraculously keeping the vomit off Allan’s furniture by keeping it on me – hence the severely soiled shirt. The necessary purge lasted quite a while, and I apparently returned to the couch to become unconscious. Allan and Big Kim fell asleep soon after, hence the elephantine snoring.

I awoke around 9:30 p.m. to the faint glow of the television set, flickering amid the barely discernable sound of talking heads on a Danish current events show, with Little Kim calmly seated in a nearby chair, slightly wide-eyed, surveying the unwashed dishes, chicken bones and empty bottles as though he’d wandered into a war zone.

As he wryly noted, it seems he’d missed the party. Little Kim had arrived, although the lunchers had long since departed, especially me.

In the 30 years since that day, stories of my epic Copenhagen arrival have not abated. It took multiple washings to get the smell out of my shirt, and a full clip of Tums to calm my innards.

Several years later, when the FOSSILS homebrewing club was established and my official title was “President for Life (PFL), Allan sent a postcard and asked if the acronym wouldn’t be more accurate if it stood for “Puking Fountain Lurcher.” He was promptly knighted as Keeper of the Couch. It was a sad day in the 2000s when he finally ditched it.

September 3, 1989 was the metaphorical halfway point in my six-month-long journey through Europe, which began in late May peering across the Berlin Wall at East Germans with guns, and ended in November on the very same orange couch in Copenhagen, in the company of the same good friends, watching on television as East and West Berliners came together to tear down that wall.

I came home anyway, and I’ve never understood why.

---

Recent columns:

August 29: ON THE AVENUES: Welcome to "Pagan Life," a weekly column devoted to heathens, infidels, idolaters, atheists, non-theists, irreligious people, agnostics, skeptics, heretics and apostates.

August 22: ON THE AVENUES: The 32 most influential books in my life.

August 15: ON THE AVENUES: Breakfast is better with those gorgeous little herrings.

August 8: ON THE AVENUES: Unless you open your eyes, “resistance” is an empty gesture.

Digital Soviet Art presents "DDR posters of the 1960s-1970s."

Erhard Grüttner sampling.

It's been a while -- about a year, to be exact.

За нашу дружбу! All the best to Allan Gamborg and his revamped Soviet Digital Art website.

Allan's latest exhibit is an obvious sweet spot for me.

---

Dear Friends

I am pleased to invite you to a unique exhibition I have organized at the Goethe Institute in Moscow, of DDR posters of the 1960s-1970s, by two famous East German designers and graphics artists of the period – Erhard Grüttner and Rolf Felix Müller. There are around 30 posters on show, for example to plays by Bertold Brecht and Kurt Weill, Maksim Gorky, amongst others from the Dresden Staatsoper and the Dresden Staatsschauspiel.

The posters were salvaged from the deep archives of Moscow artist Ruben Suryaninov (born 1930). Ruben Suryaninov is a fabulous poster artist, and during the 1960s and 1970s he made friends with the two artists, and in the process created a collection of their posters.

See virtual shows of the two artists here, (and of artist Ruben Suryaninov)

Erhard Grüttner

Rolf Felix Müller

Ruben Suryaninov

Address of the Goethe Institute: Leninsky Prospekt 95, Moscow

Opening hours Monday-Friday 9.00-20.00, Saturday 9.00-17.00 – until July 13

Best wishes,

Allan

Digital Soviet Art

V.I. Lenin is still asking difficult questions in places like Krasnoyarsk.

It's the headquarters of the Krasnoyarsk Regional Committee of the KPRF (Communist Party of the Russian Federation), in a photo taken by my old friend Allan.

What is Krasnoyarsk - Facts about the city, by Maria Mushtrieva

Krasnoyarsk is located 4065 kilometers from Moscow along the Trans-Siberian railway. It takes about 2 days and 10 hours to get there from Moscow by train and about 4.5 hours by plane. Krasnoyarsk is the center of the vast Krasnoyarsk region, it is the second biggest city in Siberia after Novosibirsk and a powerful industrial center. There are about 950,000 inhabitants.

The banner at the top reads: "Ideas are stronger than weapons." The center one bears the name of the regional Communist party.

At the bottom is the main point: "So, how is your life under capitalism, comrades?"

According to Wikipedia, it depends on what is meant by the word "capitalism."

Russia has an upper-middle income mixed economy with state ownership in strategic areas of the economy. Market reforms in the 1990s privatized much of Russian industry and agriculture, with notable exceptions to this privatization occurring in the energy and defense-related sectors.

I just like the photo.

За нашу дружбу! All the best to Allan Gamborg and his revamped Soviet Digital Art website.

Regular readers will recall that over the years, I've repeatedly doffed my уша́нка (ushanka -- it's the furry cap) in the general direction of Allan Gamborg.

It's hard to believe 31 years have passed since I first met Allan, Kim Andersen and Kim Wiesener during the rambunctious summer of '87. These three Danes of the apocalypse have been artfully weaving in and out of my travel narratives ever since, as during this famous escapade (in Allan's own words):

For example, I still think of the evening in that Belgian beer place (2000?), where all got complete rat-assed and the party just dissolved in utter chaos.

Ah, those were the daze.

Allan has lived in Moscow for 20 years or so, and somewhere around his third or fourth career in the workaday world, he assumed yet another identity: Purveyor and advocate of Soviet-era art and artists. You need not have an opinion about Vladimir Putin, or be a dirty rotten Commie, to enjoy Allan's web site. You merely must appreciate art.

Dear Friends,

I am happy to announce a brand new version of our website with Soviet Fine Art and graphics and posters - www.digitalsovietart.com

We have an improved design, new functions, better usability, and also full mobile support for all your devices.

The site is also true bilingual now – both in English and Russian (теперь и на русском языке)

Please enjoy – and do let me know if you have any comments -))

Very best wishes,

Allan

Here's the full story.

This website is dedicated to Soviet Art and Socialist Realism in the 20th century. We feature a large number of Soviet and socialist fine arts and posters as well as applied arts and design of that period.

The artists featured were active in the Soviet Union from the 1920s through the 1970s, and their works cover Russian avant-garde, socialist realism as well as the non-official underground art of the 1960s and 1970s.

The collection contains Soviet fine arts, mural designs, graphics, prints and USSR posters, and a unique assortment of applied arts, textile and fashion designs, and tapestries of the 1950s and 1960s. We also show a number of theater designs, including costumes, set designs and curtains. Another specialty of the gallery is children's book illustrations of the 1950s and 1960s.

Thematically, we often focus on Soviet art works and posters telling stories about people and their city or village, work, industry, culture, politics, and works of art illustrating the era and its history as a whole. Specific topics include Soviet agriculture, sports, theater and ballet.

The artists featured were taught by the most famous artists of the late 19th and the early 20th century, and studyed at the most prestigious art schools of the Soviet Union at the time: The VKhuTeMas, the Polygraphical Institute, the Surikov Institute, the Repin Institute, the MIPIDI, and the Moscow Textile Institute.

Most artists featured led a “double” artistic life. On the one hand, they were all members of the state controlled Artists’ Union, being on the state budget of the Soviet Ministry of Culture, producing Soviet art works in support of Soviet ideology, socialist realism, propaganda posters, etc. On the other hand, they took every opportunity to paint for themselves, i.e. painting themes and in styles they personally preferred. Working on genres such as landscape, cityscape and still-life was a manifestation of artists' independence from official ideology.

Many of these works of art were lost to the dust of artists' studios. Here we aim at showing both aspects of the artists’ works.

My pal Allan's latest exhibition is “Ode to Food” at Gallery PROUN in Moscow.

"Grow the Cattle Production"

Regular readers will recall that over the years, I've repeatedly doffed my ushanka in the general direction of Allan Gamborg. It's hard to believe 27 years have passed since I first met Allan, Kim Andersen and Kim Wiesener during the rambunctious summer of '87. These three Danes of the apocalypse have been artfully weaving in and out of my travel narratives ever since, as during this famous escapade (in Allan's own words):

For example, I still think of the evening in that Belgium beer place (2000?), where all got complete rat-assed and the party just dissolved in utter chaos.

Ah, those were the daze.

Allan has lived in Moscow for at least 15 years, and somewhere around his third or fourth career in the workaday world, he assumed yet another identity: Purveyor and advocate of Soviet-era art and artists. You can use the handy Blogger search feature with "Gamborg," and view previous postings at NAC. The format's usually the same, and it's always worth a few minutes to peruse the art. You need not be a Commie to enjoy Allan's web site, Masters of Soviet Art.

This latest exhibition is near and dear to my own heart: "Ode to Food." Read the brief introduction, and view some of the works on display here.

---

Dear Friends,

I am happy to invite you to the art exhibition “Ode to Food” at Gallery PROUN – Vinzavod, 1/7 4-y Siromyatnichesky per., Moscow.

Wednesday December 2, at 19.00

ODE to FOOD

Food is an every ingredient in our lives. Literally and metaphorically. The Exhibition show how food was depicted in Soviet art from the 1930s-1980s, as well as in contemporary Russian art.

From the collection of the Gamborg Gallery there will be app. 20 works exhibited - by Vera Livanova, Tatyana Livanova, Veniamin Briskin, Galina Shubina, Natalia Gippius, Amina Karamyan

See some of the here on our website: http://www.digitalsovietart.com/thematic-shows/140-soviet-food-markets-restaurants

I hope to see you there at the opening. If not, the exhibition is open until February 15.

4. Belgian Beercycling 2000: An evening at Cave a Biere, Danes included.

As we rode our bikes down narrow Wallonian country lanes not far removed from the outskirts of Tournai and our base camp at the Hotel d’Alcantara, a clear and warm Saturday afternoon suddenly turned blustery and overcast. The Cochonette-laced warm fuzzies from a lengthy session at Brasserie A Vapeur on its monthly brewing day dissipated rapidly in the face of a brisk headwind, made more formidable by legs still tired from the previous day’s mountain biking excursion in the woods and fields of the Pays du Collines.

However, the sobering return workout was all for the best, because a celebratory and surely taxing evening lay ahead.

Awaiting our return at the hotel were three Danes of the apocalypse: Kim Wiesener, Kim Andersen and Allan Gamborg. Coincidentally, they had gathered in Wallonia for the European soccer championships being held in the summer of 2000 at various venues throughout Belgium and the Netherlands, and after being made aware of the beercycling visit, conspired to include us in their itineraries.

These three cosmopolitan natives of Denmark are bosom friends of long standing, each of them multilingual, well-traveled and professionally accomplished in his chosen field. When a soccer match is taking place, each of them also is prone to reverting with dazzling speed to a childlike state, one understood internationally and intuitively by all sporting males.

Their life stories would fill a volume, and such a biographical rendering lies beyond my immediate task of describing the 2000 beercycling trip, but according to tradition, I’m permitted one digression. Here it is, in one of several versions.

Back in the day …

----

My friendship with the Danes goes back to 1987, and is inexorably intertwined with that of my illustrious longtime partner in crime, Barrie Ottersbach, who was unable to join us in Tournai in 2000.

That fateful summer of ‘87, an unsuspecting Kim Wiesener was the tour leader for a “youth” travel group visiting the Soviet Union and Poland, and Barrie and I were enthusiastic and only marginally youthful participants (we were 27).

Legend has it that Kim fell under Barrie’s spell (or was it the other way around?) on a hair-raising Aeroflot flight from Copenhagen to Moscow, where I joyously met the group, having arrived in the capital of the evil empire by way of a 36-hour train trip from Hungary during which I was kept company by a bag of fresh cherries, two loaves of bread, a salami from Szeged and two bottles of Bull’s Blood wine.

On the morning following the boozy evening of the group’s belated arrival, all of us were supposed to meet in the hotel lobby before setting out for a bus tour of Moscow. Kim was mildly concerned when Barrie failed to appear for roll call; I reassured him that all was well, and that Barrie was in safe hands, having ventured into the Soviet underworld with “Bill,” the friendly neighborhood black market sales representative who I’d met earlier under similar circumstances.

At that point, and not even a full day into the excursion, Kim understood that it would be a long journey, but he was reassured when Barrie appeared later that afternoon brandishing a softball-sized wad of colorful rubles. For the remainder of our stay in the USSR, Barrie gleefully depleted the ridiculously huge bankroll on lavish restaurant meals, caviar, vodka and champagne; beer was difficult to find, and the rubles worthless elsewhere in the world. For a brief time, Barrie himself occupied a sales representative position on the fringe of the black market, profitably reselling rubles back into hard currency for those members of our group who were too frightened or squeamish to trade on the streets.

This introductory lesson in entrepreneurial initiative duly completed, we moved on to Leningrad by overnight express train just in time for an impromptu Fourth of July celebration. Kim, Barrie and I gathered on the grassy, mosquito-infested bank of an urban canal, a scene made complete when a bottle of the finest Russian vodka materialized from Kim’s backpack. Illuminated by the White Night, we were introduced for the first time to Allan, who was passing through the city with a tour group of his own.

Ominously, as the bottle was passed around, its contents ingested and people slowly got to know each other, Kim and Allan began speaking in hushed tones about Denmark’s answer to Barrie: Kim Andersen, hereafter to be known as Big Kim. Their descriptions of Big Kim were offered to us in impeccable English, although occasionally they would lapse into Danish or even Russian in search of the proper words to explain this larger-than-life phenomenon.

Brief stays in the oppressed Baltic lands of Latvia and Lithuania followed Leningrad, and then Warsaw and Krakow, with too many anecdotal tales to remember, much less relate: Hoisting Nick’s American flag above the hotel in Leningrad, and then watching him trading it to a railway employee for a huge tub of caviar … an elderly fellow tourist mistaking the liquid in our vodka bottle for mineral water and gulping it down on a scorching hot day at the Polish-Soviet border as we waited for the train’s wheel carriages to be changed … building the “Leaning Tower of Pivo” from empty export Carlsberg cans in a Riga hard currency bar … the well-endowed Danish lass Metta’s provocative push-ups at a meet-and-greet with Lithuanian students … wild going-away parties in Warsaw, where Barrie and I drank wine with our leggy blonde Polish tour guide and a few of the group’s stragglers before departing for the city’s cavernous train station and commencing desperate and futile foraging for food and drink prior to the long ride to Prague and our first taste of draft Pilsner Urquell.

Our amazing, hyperkinetic tour leader Kim W. was right in the thick of most of these anecdotes, and at the conclusion of the trip we exchanged addresses with him, promising to keep in touch. In fact, Barrie and Kim agreed to meet later that summer, when Barrie would return to Copenhagen for his flight back to the United States. You can bet that even then, Kim’s wheels were spinning: What could be done to bring Barrie and Bik Kim together in Copenhagen?

In the meantime, Barrie and I embarked upon the beer-based itinerary that we had plotted in advance for the remainder of our time in Europe, first traveling from Prague to Munich, where we met Don Barry and Bob Gunn for three epochal days of Bavarian beer hall carousing, then in the company of Bob to Paris and the D-Day beaches. Barrie and I crossed to Ireland aboard the “Guinness ferry”, meeting Tommy, a newspaperman and good friend of Don’s, and later watching U2 perform at the Cork soccer stadium, then experiencing the wonders of Brian and his “High-B” Hibernian Pub, and marveling at the classic pleasures of the Irish countryside.

As the revelry continued, I didn’t think there would be enough time for me to accompany Barrie to Denmark and then double back to Brussels and my own return flight, but at a pub somewhere in Ireland, after my tenth pint of Guinness, I changed my mind.

Barrie and I concocted a plan to surprise Kim Wiesener with my delightfully unexpected presence, and we refined the insidious plot over smoked salmon and Bailey’s Irish Cream (both charged to ever groaning credit cards) while aboard the ship back to France. In Paris, we caught an overnight train to Copenhagen, and contrary to so many plans that Barrie and I have made over the years, this one came perfectly to fruition.

Soon after debarking in Copenhagen we were reunited, burrowed safely in Kim’s tiny apartment with chilled Tuborgs in hand and songs in our hearts. Following opening toasts, our devious host divulged his own surprise: An evening with Big Kim had already been arranged. Finally, Ottersbach would meet Andersen, and the world was advised to forget the “Thrilla in Manila”; instead, onlookers were to get ready for the “Battle of the Titans,” to be held in the beer venue called the Elephant & Mouse, or Mouse and Elephant, where we were informed there would be copious quantities of draft Elephant beer, Carlsberg’s fine, sturdy and strong lager.

It was to be our first visit to the M & E, a small and dignified pub near the main square, where the only sign of identification above the front door is a small plaque depicting – what else? – a mouse and an elephant. On the second floor of the pub, a handmade elephant head adorns the wall behind the wall. Draft Elephant Beer pours from the snout; the tusk is the tap handle.*

Big Kim arrived along with Graham, a British friend who, like Kim Wiesener and I, chose to nurse just a couple of half-liter glasses (at $7 a pop, somewhat financially burdensome at the time) while watching the spectacle unfold. As predicted, Big Kim and Barrie proved to be perfectly matched human beings, both with a fondness for alcohol of any sort, hot and spicy food in large quantities, impossibly tall tales and jokes, and endless, infectious tsunamis of irresistible laughter.

Big Kim and Barrie approached the high-gravity Elephant Beer at full throttle, and much merriment ensued. Somewhere around the fourth or fifth one, Barrie stumbled; accounts vary, but we’ll gently infer that some of the Elephant Beer didn’t stay down.

Advantage, Andersen.

After several hours, and with monetary reserves reaching dangerously low levels, we decided to continue drinking at an establishment where Metta (of Lithuanian push-up fame) worked as a bartender. As we stood on the street corner contemplating taxi strategies, Big Kim suddenly broke free of the group and wildly staggered into the middle of the street in an effort to hail a cab to take him home. We quickly subdued him, dodging cars and loading him into our own taxi to proceed to the next planned stop.

With this unforced error of Big Kim’s, Ottersbach had again pulled even.

Now it was a brutal battle of attrition, with the clock ticking and everyone involved drunk and fatigued. Both Barrie and Big Kim made it through big export bottles of Pilsner Urquell at the second bar, after which we returned to Kim Wiesener’s apartment for obligatory nightcaps, the outcome still very much in doubt. Barrie and Big Kim both opened their bottled beers. Barrie finished his, but Big Kim stole away, ostensibly to use the toilet, and was found a short time later sleeping on the host’s bed.

Seemingly, it was a victory for Ottersbach, but as all concerned were physically unable to tally points in their besotted condition, the Battle of the Titans was fittingly declared a draw.

Many years have passed since that epic summer and our first meeting with Kim, Allan and Big Kim. Certainly all of us have changed, but the friendship lives on. We five have met many times, in many places, and too many for me to remember (Allan would love for me to relate the story of the “Danish lunch” at his apartment in 1989, the orange couch and the real meaning of P-F-L, but it will have to wait for another session), but they’ve all been special – as I knew the meeting in Tournai would be, even if Barrie couldn’t be a part of it.

----

So it was that the cyclists returning from the Renaissance brewer’s regularly scheduled seminar met the football-loving Danes at the hotel as scheduled, and we began haggling over the details of the evening’s festivities. The non-negotiable idea, as conveyed to me with much wagging of fingers, was to partake of the scheduled feast of lobster tail and ale at the Cave a Biere at the precise time of the hour-long break between matches, both of which were far too important for the aficionados to miss.

Barrie’s absence was widely lamented, and each of us resolved to drink one or more beers for him, although we recognized that it would have taken far more than that to keep him going had he actually been present.

We set off on foot to search for a suitable place to watch sports, and a big screen television was duly located in a café just off the main square. There we settled into the Turkey-Portugal match with the help of draft Hoegaarden Wit, which served as a gentle restorative following the biking and imbibing rigors of the day. I stole away and walked down to the riverfront to tell the matron at the Cave a Biere that we’d be a bit late for dinner owing to the imperative of sports. She rolled her eyes and smiled indulgently: Let boys be boys, and there’d still be enough food and beer left whenever we made it back.

Soon it became apparent that the critical match-up wasn’t taking place on the television screen. Much in the same way that Big Kim’s initial meeting with Barrie resembled a gladiatorial marathon, the merry Dane’s previous experience with Kevin Richards – an all-day beer-drinking session during one of Big Kim’s visits to New Albany – had been both effusive and expansive. Now there was renewal.

Appropriately, upon our arrival at the Cave for what was intended as a brief respite between matches, Kevin began urging Big Kim to join him at the high-gravity end of the Belgian brewing spectrum, and together they began despoiling the café’s excellent selection of Trappist ales: Rochefort, Chimay, Westmalle and Orval. The rest of us gamely followed suit, and to my surprise, as the stock of Trappists began to deplete to the accompaniment of a happily ringing cash register, the second soccer match was largely forgotten.

In short, yet another memorable evening had begun, and in the fashion of such gatherings, all betting ceased, and an internal logic took over. It would have to be respected.

Lobster tails and side orders of potatoes and vegetables soon appeared on the table and were quickly devoured, and the steady stream of Belgian ale, divided among the usual suspects, produced the expected tomfoolery and an escalating series of tales that purported to depict exploits of past drinking bouts. I recall a cell phone appearing, and an attempt to call Barrie. In the general cacophony, it isn’t clear whether the call ever went through, although our absent Musketeer later swore that not only was the call duly received, but that the phone was never properly shut off and he was left with twenty minutes of jocularity recorded on his answering machine for perpetual enjoyment.

The otherwise stern matron of the Cave seemed much amused at our antics and presided over the international gathering with grace, going so far as to pose willingly for a photo with Buddy. I made no attempt to take notes on the beers or to record what I’d sampled, seeing as all were old favorites that had treated me well before, and could be expected to be as forgiving again.

Bob blessed the raucous group numerous times: “Here’s to us … ” Kim, Allan and I recalled our previous 1999 meeting in Moscow, reliving the evening of the metal detector at the brewpub, the private table dancer who wasn’t minding the mint, and shoes filled with Volga mud. Big Kim and Kevin continued knocking them back at a prodigious pace.

At some point much later in the evening, through the haze of three too many Trappists, but after there had been a monetary settlement, I watched as Kevin, Big Kim, Allan and Bob Reed suddenly rose from their seats and filed out with the solemnity of a funeral procession – except it was they who were embalmed. Their destination was unclear. Apparently it was time to go, so Kim Wiesener and I pulled Buddy from the arms of our hostess and the three of us began weaving back to the hotel through darkened, damp streets, kicking at the litter left behind by revelers on a festive summer’s evening.

It was a stone cold sleep. I was curious next morning, so I asked Kevin: When you left the Cave, was it because Allan had called a taxi to take all of you back to the hotel? Kevin scratched his head and confessed to not remembering whether they had been driven or walked. Moments later, I asked Bob the same question, and he couldn’t recall, either. Suspecting it would be useless to ask Big Kim, I received confirmation of the taxi order from a shrugging Allan.

We went our separate ways on Sunday morning after breakfast, the Danes moving out by rental car to attend the next Eurocup match-up, and the bikers heading west by train to Poperinge and the second phase of the journey.

In the next installment, we commence a love affair with the good people of Poperinge.

----

* Sadly, the pub is no more.

New exhibitions at Masters of Soviet Art ... and big news from the proprietor, A. Gamborg.

"I just saved Angela Davis from the Moscow rains and winters. A big girl. Made in the 1970s, and she has been outside for at least 10 years. Just needs the hand of a gentle restorer. We shall overcome ... "

Over the years, I've repeatedly doffed my ushanka in the general direction of Allan Gamborg. It's hard to believe 27 years have passed since I first met Allan, Kim Andersen and Kim Wiesener during the rambunctious summer of '87. These three Danes of the apocalypse have been artfully weaving in and out of my travel narratives ever since, as during this famous escapade (in Allan's own words):

For example, I still think of the evening in that Belgium beer place (2000?), where all got complete rat-assed and the party just dissolved in utter chaos.

Ah, those were the daze.

Allan has lived in Moscow for at least 15 years, and somewhere around his third or fourth career in the workaday world, he assumed yet another identity: Purveyor and advocate of Soviet-era art and artists. You can use the handy Blogger search feature with "Gamborg," and view previous postings at NAC. The format's usually the same, and it's always worth a few minutes to peruse the art. You need not be a Commie to enjoy Allan's web site, Masters of Soviet Art.

This time around, there's a significant addendum: Allan's getting married, and quite soon. In fact, it might have been possible for us to attend one of the weddings, but logistics wouldn't bend. So, all the best to Allan and Irina.

There'll be time, down the road, when we'll all coincide once more.

---

Dear Friends,

We have a series of new exhibitions on the web:

THEMES

Anti Colonialism Posters

http://www.digitalsovietart.com/thematic-shows/252-anti-colonialism-posters

In the 20th century, the USSR represented themselves as the foremost enemy of colonialism and imperialism, and thus politically and materially supported Third World revolutionary organisations who fought for national independence. These countries included Cuba and South American countries, many African countries, as well as South East Asia. We show a series of posters stating that point of view.

He Who Does Not Work Shall Not Eat ! (Кто не работает, тот не ест !)

http://www.digitalsovietart.com/thematic-shows/251-he-who-does-not-work-shall-not-eat

A famous slogan of the Soviet Union, part of the overall campaign to develop Socialist behaviour in the Soviet Population. The origin is from the bible: “He who does not work, neither shall he eat” is a Biblical aphorism derived from II Thessalonians 3:10. According to Vladimir Ilich Lenin, “He who does not work shall not eat” is a necessary principle under socialism, the preliminary phase of the evolution towards communist society. The phrase appears in his 1917 work, The State and Revolution. Through this slogan Lenin explains that in socialist states only productive individuals could be allowed access to the articles of consumption. We show here a series of works from 1963 by various famous poster artists interpreting that theme, for example by Viktor Govorkov, Veniamin Briskin and Valk.

ARTISTS

KONSTANTIN GNEUSHEV  (BORN 1922) 

http://www.digitalsovietart.com/artist-portfolios/250-konstantin-gneushev-born-1922

Konstantin Grigorevich Gneushev was born in Gneushevo, Orel. As a boy he went to a specialised art school. In 1938 he entered the MIPIDI, Moscow Institute of Applied and Decorative Art. In 1941 he volunteered for the army, and served on several fronts: He was seriously injured in 1942, and he received several distinguished medals for his service. After the war and several years of hospitalisation, he entered the Stroganov Institute, where his main teacher was the famous Pavel Kuznetsov. Other teachers were Aleksander Kuprin, Sergei Gerasimov, and Egorov. Konstantin Grigorevich's favourite media since the 1960s is the pastel. His style is light and full of life, showing a direct link to French impressionists. That was also noted mockingly by Alexander Kuprin during a students' exhibition at the Stroganov Institute. Gneushev was always very fond of sports. This can be observed in his numerous pastels and oils of the 1960s, depicting gymnastics, ice hockey, fencing, and swimming.  In the 1970s he was enchanted by the world of ballet and opera. In the mornings and the afternoons he would go to the theaters, most often the Stanislavsky, and paint the ballerinas and the corps de ballet during rehearsals and before the show. The circus is one of his passions. In his vintage years, Konstantin Grigorevich is painting mainly landscapes and still-lives, all in his favourite media - pastel. In his landscapes the sun always shines.

BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS

Hans Christian Andersen Fairytales, illustrated by Nika Golts

Ганс Кристиан Андерсен, иллистрации Никы Гольц

http://www.digitalsovietart.com/book-illustrations/254-hans-christian-andersen-fairytales-illustrated-by-nika-golts-1925-2012

A series of original illustrations to Hans Christian Andersen's fairytales by famous Moscow book illustrator Nika Golts. On show are illustrations from The Little Mermaid, The Snow Queen, Thumbelina, The Ugly Duckling, The Princess on the Pea, The Emperor's New Clothes, Little Ida's Flowers, The Money-Box, The Little Match-Seller, The Tinder-Box, Ole-Luk-Oie - The Dream-God, The Brave Tin Soldier, The Red Shoes, Soup from a Sausage Skewer, and The Shepherdess And The Chimney-Sweep.

Difficult Verses (Elena Blaginina) - illustrations by Marina Uspenskaya, 1960

Трудные стихи (Елена Благинина) - Марина Успенская, 1960

http://www.digitalsovietart.com/book-illustrations/253-difficult-verses-elena-blaginina-illustrations-by-marina-uspenskaya-1960

Original Illustrations by Marina Uspenskaya to the children's book from 1960 "Трудные стихи" (Difficult Verses) by Elena Blaginina. Publishing house: Detgiz. Printed in 70.000 copies. Price was 1.60 Roubles.

Enjoy the shows !

New catalogs at the Masters of Soviet Art website.

From time to time, I reintroduce my friend Allan Gamborg. He's Danish by birth, a longtime resident of Moscow, and truly a citizen of the planet.

Allan has enjoyed much success in his "second" (third? fifth?) career as a purveyor and advocate of Soviet-era art and artists. You can use the handy Blogger search here at NAC, use "Gamborg" as the search term, and see previous postings. These days, the website is called Masters of Soviet Art, and it's always worth a few minutes to peruse the art. You need not be a Commie to enjoy the links to Allan's on-line galleries.

As in the past, permit me to thank Allan for his boundless hospitality and for allowing me to share his latest links.

---

Dear Friends,

In February we will issue a new catalogue (number 6) in the series “Master of Soviet Art” – with the artists Vera and Tatyana Livanova: Socialist posters, circus posters and costumes, theatre stage designs and costumes, film set designs, Siberian landscapes and power plants.

As a pre-view teaser, we can show – on our website -  the images of the art-work that will be included the catalogue. Please see below – and do look forward to the catalogue !

VERA LIVANOVA (1910-1998) 

http://www.digitalsovietart.com/artist-portfolios/233-vera-livanova-1910-1998

Vera Matveevna Livanova was born in Moscow. Her mother was Natalia Valeryavnovna Lyubavskaya (born Zyzykina), and her father was Matvey Kuzmich Lyubavsky - historian, professor and chancellor at the Moscow State University before the Revolution. In 1930 she graduated from the Theater Design department of the Vkhutein art institute - among her teachers were three icons of pre-war Soviet art, Gennady Gerasimov, Lev Bruni and Piotr Konchalovsky. Her style as a poster artist was shaped under the guidance of well-known masters of early Soviet art Aleksandr Deineka, Yuri Pimenov and Vladimir Tatlin. Vera Matveevna started her career as a professional artist in Perm doing theater designs. After two years in Perm she moved to Kiev where she started working as a poster artist. In 1936 Vera Livanova settled down in Moscow and in 1938 she became a member of the Moscow Union of Artists. Being very productive, from 1937 to 1968 Vera Livanova worked as a poster artist for the “Izogiz” and “Soviet Artist” publishing houses. In the period from 1958 to 1968 she carried out commissions for “Agitplakat”.At the beginning of her career with “Izogiz”, Livanova’s posters focused on topics related to the rise of agricultural and industrial standards under the Soviet regime. Common topics were those connected with elections, anniversaries and other political events celebrated by the Soviet ideology. Her posters show her mastery as a colourist, not being afraid of innovative colour solutions. During World War II Vera Livanova’s work focused on mass propaganda themes. The first poster announcing the defeat of fascist Germany was created by her. After the war Livanova turned to the concept of post-war reconstruction of Soviet agriculture. She also published posters dealing with elections, with titles such as “Elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR” and “The Constitution of the USSR”.Livanova’s posters of the fifties demonstrate the artist’s fascination with the traditional Russian “lubok”. Her series of posters dedicated to Moscow’s 800th anniversary depict a composition and a range of colours very much alike the style of popular lubok images. The sixties focused on international themes. Slogans such as “Freedom to Africa!”, “May. Peace. Labour!”, “Peace and Happiness for the World!” are typical of that period. Through her career Vera Livanova traveled extensively in the Soviet Union - all documented in her masterful pencil drawings and gouaches. Destinations were Khosta in 1957, Gurzuf and the Crimea in the 1960s, and the developing Siberia of the1960s - Divnogorsk, the Enisei river, and the construction of the Krasnoyarsk hydro power plant in Dudinka.Vera Livanova and her husband German Livanov, architect and theater director, provided a significant artistic inspiration for their daughter Tatyana, and Vera Matveevna designed several posters together with her daughter. 

TATYANA LIVANOVA (1931-2012) 

http://www.digitalsovietart.com/artist-portfolios/235-tatyana-livanova-1931-2012

Tatyana Germanovna Livanova was born in Perm. Her father German Livanov was an architect and theater director, and her mother, Vera Livanova, was a famous Soviet poster artist. She graduated as a designer from the All-Union State Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. During her career, Livanova has been working as a set and costume design artist for the circus, cinema, ballet and drama, as well as for TV productions. Livanova formed herself as an artist under the guidance of outstanding masters, such as Yuri Pimenov, Grigory Schegal and Joseph Shpinel. Her graduation work was set designs for the film by Nikolai Pogodin “The Kremlin Chiming Clock”, and her first official assignment after graduation was costumes to the film “A War Secret”.In the early 1960s she designed  costumes, posters and programs for the Soviet State Circus. During that period she designed several political posters, together with her mother Vera Livanova. All through her career, she designed sets and costumes for a large number of films, e.g. the Mosfilm productions “Summerfolks” (Maksim Gorky), “The Youth is with Us”, “The Only Way”, “The Birds Fly North”, and the TV productions “Two Captains” and “Truth Is Good But Happiness Is Better“ (Alexander Ostrovsky).Tatyana Germanovna considered the most important period of her career was her work with director Boris Babochkin at the Maly Theater, for example with the Ostrovsky plays “Truth Is Good But Happiness Is Better“and “A Profitable Place”, the Maksim Gorky plays “Dostigayev and Others” and “Counterfeit Money”. She also did designs for “Zar Potap” (Alexander Kapkov), “Mother’s Field” (Chingiz Aitmatov), “The Road To Calvary” (Aleksei Tolstoy), “The Wedding” (Mikhail Zoshchenko), “The Glass  Menagerie” (Tennessee Williams), “The Comedy of Errors” (William Shakespeare), and about 20 more plays. Livanova prepared costumes and stage designs for the Tatar State Theater of Opera and Ballet’s production of “Sleeping Beauty” (Peter Chaikovsky), and for the ballet “Leili and Medzhyn” (Sergei Balasanyan).

Enjoy the shows !

Kudos to Allan Gamborg and his "Soviet Moscow" exhibition, opening next week.

For many years, I've passed along news of my friend Allan Gamborg's career in collecting and curating Soviet-era art. He's got a big exhibition coming up, and although I'd love to go, all I can do is recognize it here.

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Dear Friends,

I am happy to invite you to the opening of my exhibition - works from my collection on the theme Soviet Moscow (Советская Москва) on Friday March 1, at 17.00. It takes place at Sergey Andriyaka’s Watercolour and Fine Arts Academy - at ulitsa Akademika Vargi, 15, Moscow

The exhibition focuses on Moscow in the Soviet era seen from different perspectives. The exterior: Streets, architecture, political posters. The interior: People, fashion and design, still-lives. At the exhibition there will be about 350 works of art from the 1920s-1960s by 40 different artists.

See more information about the exhibition here: http://academy.andriaka.ru/content/3961/ (only in Russian) .

OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION "SOVIET MOSCOW"

We are pleased to invite you to the opening of the exhibition "Soviet Moscow" on the 1st of March at 17.00 at the Andriaka Academy of Watercolour and Fine Arts, at Ulitsa Akademika Vargi 15.

Soviet Art is experiencing a come-back in popularity. Looking at historic events who took place more than half a century ago through the fine arts, we understand that these works of art no longer are everyday mundane objects, but have turned into a reflection of the beautiful but long gone dream of Socialism.

The works of art in Allan Gamborg Andersen's collection all tell a tale of a time and a place now gone; of places and people during the time of the Soviet Union. Every piece tells a story of the Soviet era - of places of hopes, of production, and of the history of the country in those intense and complicated times that had such an immense impact on the history of the whole world.

The collection of Soviet art was started in mid-1990s. It tries to express the duality of the double lives the many artists led: On the one hand they demonstrate the pride in country and system, the modernisation of production, the all pervasive aspects of politics, the propaganda in its various forms. 

On the other hand, the Collection tries to show the sun falling on a back street, the changing of the seasons in Moscow, young and elders leading their lives in the big city - in short a multitude of motives captured for no other reason than the love of it.

The main principle of Allan Gamborg Andersen's collection is that every work of art should tell a story. A quickly drawn sketch can tell and express as much as large, detailed oil composition.

New exhibitions at the Masters of Soviet Art website.

From time to time, I reintroduce my friend Allan Gamborg. He's Danish by birth, a longtime resident of Moscow, and truly a citizen of the planet.

Allan has enjoyed much success in his "second" (third? fifth?) career as a purveyor and advocate of Soviet-era art and artists. You can use the handy Blogger search here at NAC, use "Gamborg" as the search term, and see previous postings. These days, the website is called Masters of Soviet Art, and it's always worth a few minutes to peruse the art. You need not be a Commie to enjoy the links to Allan's on-line galleries.

As in the past, permit me to thank Allan for his boundless hospitality and for allowing me to share his latest links.

Dear Friends,

We have a series of  new exhibitions on the on the web:

THEMES

ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS IN SOVIET POSTERS

http://www.digitalsovietart.com/thematic-shows/201-acronyms-and-abbreviations-in-soviet-posters

In the early days of the Soviet Union, each social or political innovation by the Soviet government gave rise to new linguistic multisyllabic slogans  - one longer and more awkward than the other - and thus the Russian language was losing the elegance and lightness of the pre-revolution Russian language.

The Russian language evolved in step with the Soviet man. Some examples of acronyms have become generally recognizable, for example Kolkhoz (collective farm - колхоз) and Кomsomol (Young communists' league, комсомол - ВЛКСМ).

ARTISTS

VADIM TROFIMOV (1912-1981) 

http://www.digitalsovietart.com/artist-portfolios/202-vadim-trofimov-1912-1981

Vadim Vadimovich Trofimov was born in the city of Ulyanovsk and moved to Moscow in 1920. He started taking art classes in 1928 with the artist Vatagin, studying both drawing and sculpture - a combination that remained with him through his whole career. His first job a an artist was at the Moscow Darwin museum, where he found his passion for depicting animals. In the 1930 he started working as a book illustrator, for the publishing houses Detskaya Literatura and Prosveshenie. During the war he worked as a poster artist for the famous studio Okna TASS (Tass Windows). He served in WW2 on the Bryansk and the Belorussian fronts, and was awarded several medals. He traveled many times to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), drawing and making lithographs of the daily life on the island. Also, he traveled extensively in the Russian North, depicting Northern animals and Northern landscapes. In his later years he mainly worked in sculpture, plaster, concrete, metal, creating life-size animals and compositions. The State Tretyakov museum in Moscow has a large collection of his works on permanent exhibition, and so does the Moscow Darwin museum. Vadim Vadimovich's daughter Irina Trofimova is a famous textile designer and batik artist, and member of the Russian Academy of Fine Arts.

VLADIMIR FAVORSKY (1886-1964)

http://www.digitalsovietart.com/artist-portfolios/203-vladimir-favorsky-1886-1964

Vladimir Andreevich Favorsky is by many considered the most influential artist and teacher in the disciplines of book illustrations, woodcut and linocut. He became a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in 1962, and a People's Artist (Народный художник СССР) of the USSR in 1963.  He studied under Konstantin Yuon in 1903-05, and then in Munich 1903-1907. From 1907-1913 he studied at Moscow art schools. As an artist, Vladimir Favorsky created an impressive amount of book illustrations in the woodcut and linocut media during the 1920s and 1930s.  As a teacher, Vladimir Favorsky was active in VKHUTEMAS 1920-1930, where he taught and inspired a whole generation of Soviet graphic artists, including Deineka and Pimenov. He taught at the Polygraphic institute from 1930-34, and at the Institute of Fine Arts 1934-38.  He also developed a theory - still used today - of how to design and illustrate books.

BOOK ILLUSTRATIONS

ABOUT THE GIRL NASTYA AND THE MALICIOUS INVISIBLE GIRL (YURY VYAZEMSKY) - MARINA USPENSKAYA, 1986

ПРО ДЕВОЧКУ НАСТЮ И ЗЛУЮ НЕВИДИМКУ (ЮРИЙ ВЯЗЕМСКИЙ)

http://www.digitalsovietart.com/book-illustrations/204-about-the-girl-nastya-and-the-malicious-invisible-girl-yury-vyazemsky-marina-uspenskaya-1986

The children's book was Issued by the publishing house Malysh. Printed in 175.000 copies, price was 25 kopecks.

Enjoy the shows !