Explores the extraordinary flowering of the arts during the first 15 years of the Soviet state up until Stalin's brutal suppression of the avant-garde in 1932
Published to coincide with the centenary of the 1917 October Revolution
Accompanies the Royal Academy show based on the landmark Russian exhibition of 1932, running from February 11th until April 17th in the Academy's Main Galleries. This far-ranging exhibition will - for the first time - survey the entire artistic landscape of post-Revolutionary Russia, encompassing Kandinsky s boldly innovative compositions, the dynamic abstractions of Malevich and the Suprematists, and the emergence of Socialist Realism, which would come to define Communist art as the only style accepted by the regime
Revolution: Russian Art, 1917-1932 encapsulates a momentous period in Russian history that is vividly expressed in the diversity of art produced between 1917, the year of the October Revolution, and 1932 when Stalin began to suppress the avant-garde and its debates. Based around the great exhibition of 1932 held at the State Russian Museum in Leningrad, the book explores the fascinating themes and artistic developments of the first fifteen years of the Soviet state, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, posters, graphics and film. The exhibition itself was to be the swansong of avant-garde art in Russia: new policies quickly ensured that Socialist Realism - collective in production, public in manifestation and Communist in ideology - was to become the only acceptable art form. This volume is a timely and authoritative exploration of how modern art in all its forms flourished, was recognised, celebrated, and broken by implacable authority all within fifteen years.
