Pavel Filonov

(1883 - 1941)

463

Калевала

Kalevala

Leningrad: Academia, 1933

255 x 195 mm. 330 pages

Edition: 10,300.

Kalevala is the famous medieval epos from Finland. In 1930, the Soviet Ambassador to Finland Ivan Maiskii, invited Filonov to illustrate the first Russian translation of it. Filonov had a hard time because in that year his planned and already installed personal exhibition was cancelled at the last moment. As a formalist his work was condemned and he lost favour with the Soviet authorities. Filonov agreed to the Finnish proposal on the condition that the collective of his followers: Masters of the Analytic Art were able to contribute under his supervision. A total of thirteen artists from the collective illustrated the book. Most of the drawings were finished by 1932, but due to critical remarks of Maiskii’s wife, some of the drawings had to be reworked. Finally the book was published in December 1933. The prestigious edition by the publishing-firm Academia with an introduction by Maiskii, had a dust jacket, boards and a frontispiece in full-colour printing. In the book ten full-page and fifty half-page illustrations were printed in black-and-white. Although Filonov did not create any design himself, he directed the choice of subjects and followed the progress of the work in a gathering with the artists twice a week. In Russian book art, this book has a special place because of its history and its quality of illustrations.

References:

Misler and Bowlt 1984, p. 130

Sovetskaia grafika 1985, pp. 259-266

Dusseldorf 1990, pp. 251-255

Nijmegen 2004, p. 105

Hellyer 2006, nr. 165