K. IVANOV (DATES UNKNOWN) [PEACE TO THE WORLD!] 1951. 32 1/4x21 1/8 inches, 82x53 1/2 cm. Iskusstvo, Leningrad. Condition B+: minor tears, creases and wrinkles in margins and image. Paper. When Stalin came to power in 1922 it was the beginning of the end of the prominent avant-garde artistic movements within the Soviet Union. At the First Congress of the Union of Soviet Writers, in 1934, it was proclaimed that "the glorification of anonymous little heroes had been replaced by praise for the individual hero" (Bonnell p. 36). Socialist Realism, reflecting, "correctly," the Soviet "reality" and its revolutionary development became the Soviet way of art for over 50 years. The style, which at its austere peak basically forbade the slightest interpretative touch in art, was marked by its straightforward academic style, its obvious nationalism and its complete isolationism from the rest of the world's art movements. It is immediately recognizable by its most obvious characteristics: red banners and flags, optimism and a collective of happy, smiling workers, peasants, politicians, soldiers and children all working together, radiant with happiness, to build the Soviet paradise.
![K. IVANOV (DATES UNKNOWN). [PEACE TO THE WORLD!] 1951.. 32x21 inches, 82x53 cm. Iskusstvo, Leningrad..](https://catalogue.swanngalleries.com/full//352\597352.jpg)