WLADYSLAW STRZEMINSKI (1893-1952) [CREATE THE "WEEK OF THE RED GIFT" EVERYWHERE.] 1919.
10 3/4x23 inches, 27 1/4x58 1/2 cm. [Litizdat,] Vitebsk.
Condition A-: expertly-repaired tear at right edge; expert restoration along vertical fold; time-staining at edges. Mounted on Japan.
Strzeminski was a Polish painter, typographer and designer who was associated with Kazimir Malevich during that artist's early interest in Suprematism. Strzeminski and his future wife, Katarzyna Kobro, followed Malevich to Smolensk in 1919, where Strzeminski became involved with UNOVIS (Advocates of New Art) and did some work for the ROSTA outpost there. This poster was published by Litizdat, the poster arm of the Political Directorate of the Revolutionary Military Council of Russia. Active between 1919 and 1922, they published seven and a half million posters during that time. They are best known as the printer credited with El Lissitzky's Beat The Whites With the Red Wedge, which is the 19th poster they produced. This image is the 13th, and as such, was quite possibly one of the inspirations for Lissitzky's poster. Indeed, the latter's central image bears striking similarity to some of the motifs used on this, the former. "Red Gift Day" was established in January 1919 to celebrate the Red Army and to raise money for its support. Strzeminski and Korbo were married in 1920, moved to Vilnius in 1922, and settled in Warsaw the following year. During the 1920s, he formulated his theory on Unism and published his seminal "Theory of Vision" in 1958. rare. Berman p. 30, Costakis 128.