Striking 42-leaf volume (including covers), lithographically printed to one side only, of Russian Futurist verse and illustration. Octavo (7 3/8 x 5 1/2 inches). Original illustrated wrappers with cover design by Malevich, housed in custom black portfolio and matching slipcase, title in French and publication date stamped to spine in silver. Some light wear to covers, slight staining around staples, overall excellent condition. Saint Petersburg: Svet, 1914.

This striking work represents the second edition of a most exciting, radical, and highly lauded Russian Futurist book, not only enlarged from the first edition, but in reality an entirely transformed publication. The pages contain narrative verse in the authors' hands concerning a card game between the Devil and sinners in Hell, and are illustrated throughout with lithographic images by Malevich (1879-1935) - both front and rear covers as well as three images within the text, and Rozanova (1886-1918) - 23 illustrations, some full-page.

This second edition contains not only 292 additional verses, but is illustrated with new and original graphic works; the 1912 edition was illustrated by Natalia Goncharova. Kruchenykh (1886-1968) and Khlebnikov's (1885-1922) collaborative verse is an example of "zaumnoe yazik" (abstruse language), in which the sound effects of the words transcend their underlying meanings. The illustrations, striking in both their imagery and execution, are beautifully integrated with the text.

According to the Art Institute of Chicago, "Books by progressive Russian artists and poets, made between the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, aimed to overthrow conventions of art and society simultaneously. Their makers believed that art and language needed to become immediate and real - part of everyday life - and as a result these Futurist books were willfully made with cheap materials, and appeared purposely unrefined, as if they were products of wild and primitive behavior."

(Rowell & Wye: The Russian Avant-Garde Book 1910-1934, nos. 79, 80, 81 (and no. 7 for the first edition); illustrated pp. 80-81.).

Book ID: 53198

Price: $11,500.00