In 1925, Ivan Narodny, an eclectic writer and art critic, took the
group of artists around Robert W. Chanler and
founded this ‘bohemian’ journal, as a private enterprise. Even
though Robert W. Chanler, David Burliuk and John D. Williams are
mentioned as co-editors the magazine was mainly the effort of
Narodny. His eclecticism can well be seen in the contents of this
journal, announced as a series of 12 of which only 5 issues were
published. Among the contributing artists were Alajalov, Bobritsky,
Burliuk and Cickovsky who
had worked with Narodny on the performance of his play The
Skygirl in 1923. The first issue, with a reproduction of a work
by Chanler on the cover, opens with a programmatic text by Narodny
explaining what the journal is all about. The second issue, has a
drawing by Soudeikine on its cover, Bobritsky designed the cover for
the fourth issue. Though it was announced for the next issue, the
last part of The Skygirl did not appear in the magazine but
was published as a separate book. The fourth issue had some new
futuristic tales by Narodny and also a brief report by Katherine
Dreier on the activities of the Société Anonyme. The fifth and final
issue, with a cover by Donald Corley, presents the artists as the
Artel of Arts with a new programmatic text and another tale by
Narodny. Included is the Artel’s program for the 1926-1927 season.
References:
Brussels 2005, no.
107
SPB 2009, pp. 131-141
