May 10, 2004 - Sale 2006

Sale 2006 - Lot 28

Price Realized: $ 2,185
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,500 - $ 3,000
MIKHAIL DLUGACH (1893-1985) [10 YEARS OF THE USSR CIVILIAN AIR FLEET.] 1933.
401/4x27 inches.
Condition B: sharp horizontal fold; repaired tears and creases in margins; creases in image. Japan.
Mikhail Dlugach was one of the giants of avant-garde Soviet film poster design in the 1920s and 1930s. Working for Reklam Film, the state run film poster design department, Dlugach worked along side such renowned designers as the Stenberg Brothers, Nikolai Prusakov and Grigori Borisov and designed over 500 posters himself. He also designed a few political posters. Within the film genre his poster designs can most closely be compared to the Stenberg Brothers and in this political poster, it seems, he is emulating another great Russian designer: Gustav Klutsis. Here, celebrating 10 years of the USSR civilian air fleet and calling for the continued development of air traffic "in all major directions, as one of the most important means of contact with remote regions and the largest industrial centers," Dlugach provides all of the standard elements of a Russian constructivist design: Stalin and Lenin, photomontage and factories. As a departure from the works of Klutsis whose designs are primarily red, Dlugach uses a lot blue. The graphs at the bottom depict the existing airline network (in kilometers), the number of passengers and the amount of mail transported.