Customer Reviews

Soviet Posters: The Sergo Grigorian Collection

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

With the majority of peasants illiterate when the Communists seized power in the Russian Revolution in the early 1900s, the communications system including the press primitive, posters soon took a prominent place in spreading the ideas and ideals of Communism and focusing the far-flung, heterogeneous population on central institutions such as the army. The poster never lost its prominent position in the Soviet Union. While the subject matter of the many posters was limited by government authorities to accepted propaganda themes and perspectives, considerable latitude and even considerable innovation were allowed and even encouraged. Suprematicism championed by the modernist Kasimir Malevich "created a new artistic alphabet, based on the languages of color and energy. Vladimir Mayakovsky and Alexander Rodchenko were two Russian artists who pored their skills and visions into poster art in lieu of other hospitable mediums in the totalitarian state. El Lisitzky introduced the style 'constructivism" in the 1920, followed by photomontage done by Gustav Klutsis and others in the early 1930s. Lafont, who was born in Moscow and is the author of "Pillaging Cambodia - Illicit Traffic in Khmer Art," cites such influential Soviet artists, whose influence spread outside of Russia, and follows the changing course of the Soviet poster according to changing artistic ideas, historical circumstances, and emphasis on certain propaganda in the Introduction.

In groupings of a few years to as much as a decade or more roughly defining historical periods of the Soviet Union, two hundred and fifty posters are pictured in full-page size with details of some shown on facing pages. Translations of their exhortations and in some cases longer message or text are found in the notes following the extensive gallery. But for 14, all are from the collection of Grigorian, a Russian lawyer who is working to establish a museum for Soviet posters. This collection of his plus ranging widely over styles, subjects, and periods of the statist posters of the former Soviet Union makes an outstanding retrospective.

Hello:
This book shows hundreds of soviet proaganda posters, from war times to everyday life. I'm specifying this because it's not an exclusive-war-versus-Germany-posters-compilation, but a general and exhaustive view of 70 years of propaganda.

In this case, the selection is extremely complete, with a few posters of every great poster and soviet-image creators like Rodchenko, for instance.
Recommended for propaganda lovers, political passionates and graphic designers.

Greetings from Barcelona!!

I was intrigued to read in the intro of this excellent book that the posters shown were printed in quantities of between five thousand and a hundred thousand and mostly had a rather short lifespan so we must be grateful to Sergo Grigorian for having the foresight and enthusiasm to create his collection.

I thought the early posters, from the 1918 onwards, are the most fascinating. There are several in the best Constructivist tradition, page fifty-four has a stunning typographic one designed by Sorbonski or page seventy-two with a movie poster showing a painting of two revolutionary peasants using a machine gun integrated into display headlines and text. However as you look through the pages the graphic style, especially after 1945, slowly morphs into safe predictable State style with plenty of happy children and contemporary versions of Stakhanovites leading the workers into the dazzling future.

The last book section with posters from 1965 to 2001 do show however a rather wide graphic style with strong abstracts, even a bit of pop art, photo montage and on page 223 a very western European style poster for a Russian shotgun (in English for Raznoexport).

Overall I thought an excellent selection of posters presented in a well produced book (and good value for the price) but there were a couple of annoying editorial flaws. The page numbers are turned sideways and they assume a bit more importance than the average publication because the details about each poster are at the back of the book and it is rather frustrating to have to keeping turning backwards and forwards. Made perhaps more annoying because there is plenty of space on each page for the captions.

I understand that Prestel will have a similar book of North Korean posters out later this year.

***FOR AN INSIDE LOOK click 'customer images' under the cover.

This book is an excellent collection of Soviet posters. The entire book is full page images of posters with English translations. The range is early 20th century to '85 or so. Small snippets of background accompany certain ones that have special significance. WELL worth the investment.

This book let you enter in an unknown world inside comunism, behind the russian iron courtain.
If i had to criticize something i would say it lacks more explanation on each of the posters.

I bought this book as a gift for a family member in the advertising business. There are many good quality color plates exploring a variety of different styles of Soviet cold war propaganda art, plus background information and English translations. This is a very good choice either for a graphic artist seeking to explore Soviet styles or anyone interested in historical propaganda.

I liked this book, but less than the comparible North Korean and Chinese books available on Amazon. Many of the same techniques of propaganda being used to create a cohesive effect upon the target audience are evident in the posters and pictures supplied, however due to the production values of the original works, many of the actual Soviet posters appear crude by more modern standards. There was also a limited range of colour available for the production of the original posters, resulting in a number of fairly bleak looking posters and pictures. The Soviet posters, along with the Chinese and even the North Korean posters and propaganda at times all share similarities in technique, however the Soviet posters, more than the others, used photographic elements to convey a modernistic and progressive theme. This was often used to highlight their military strength as well as technical ability. I enjoyed this book, and found it interesting to watch the gradual change in the refinement of the propaganda and production techniques used from the early days (around 1918) through to the cold war.

I bought this as a gift for one of my groomsmen who is a Russian Studies nut. Huge hit. GREAT BOOK. Fantastic pictures. HIGHLY recommended.