Sergei Tretiakov

Противогазы

Gas masks

St. Petersburg, MK publishers, 2010

370 x 450 mm.

Gas Masks is a play written in 1923 by Sergei Tretiakov (1892–1939). It tells the story of a repairman who is killed by a leaking gas pipe because of a shortage of gas masks; in his memory his son is subsequently named Gasmask to honour him. A young Sergei Eisenstein (1898–1948) first staged the play on the work floor of the Moscow Gas Factory. In 10 colour lithographs with offset additions printed on cardboard Karasik shows how gas masks were readily available for every Soviet citizen and even animals by the 1930s. On the postcard-like image on the reverse side the text of the play has been printed in offset. These sheets are

kept in a wooden box to which an original gas mask has been affixed. The play was published in a 12 copy edition.