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Boris Grigoriev (1886 - 1939) |
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Boris Grigoriev Rasseja Rusland Berlin: Slovo 1921 318 x 262 mm. 158 pages Edition: unknown.
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This monograph with 74 reproductions of Grigoriev’s paintings and drawings was published in the Summer of 1921. Together with the fame that he had gained since his arrival in Berlin, this book introduced Grigoriev as ‘the prophet of rural Russia’. It repeats and extends the 1918 Raseia publication. The cover and dust-jacket of the linen edition is quite remarkable in the artist’s oeuvre. The yellow and red squared drawings depict typical Raseian scenes and are repeated in strings all over the front- and back cover. The space on top of the front cover is kept free for the title balanced by two squares just below the centre showing a simple but powerful drawing of a farmer with a horse next to a haystack. To protect this cover a special dust-jacket was added. For this Grigoriev made a collage: he cut from a bigger drawing into five pieces and rearranged these along the front and back. A preliminary sketch for the dust-jacket (right) shows that Grigoriev first thought of the idea scattering drawings around a central farmer and horse. Rasseja is also special as it is one of the first books containing coloured off-set prints. That it really was something out of the ordinary can be seen in its high price of 160 Marks and 190 marks for a copy bound in half-leather. References: Zwiebelfisch, 1921, p.nn. Brussel 1928, p. 86 New York 1977, nr. 273 Urbana 1985, p. 19 Moscow 1986, p. 240 Fekula 1988, nr. 6579 Bad Homburg, 1989, p. 216 Berlin 1989, p.126 Stommels 1993, p. 65 |
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