Eastern European Avant-gardes from Michael Fagan Fine Art & Rare Books

Quarto 23.3x15.2 cm., wrappers, 1928-1930, 18 numbers (all published). Cover designs by Ernests Kalis. A bimonthly journal, considered to be one of Laicens' most important publications and the most significant journal of the era along with SIGNALS but esteemed to be of higher literary quality and thought. Striking abstract linocut covers, highly original, in bright colors unique for each issue.… Read more about this item

October 1928-July 1930 (all published) Octavo, wrappers, 19 numbers in 17 issues. From its first issue stating its intent as a Marxist journal of the social sciences and arts, Signals was, like almost all avant-garde activities in Latvia, driven by a social and economic agenda which incorporated the use modernist graphic design of the day. There are, among the more generally… Read more about this item

Octavo 18.5x13.5 cm., illustrated wrappers, 256pp. Liudas Dovydenas (1905-2000) was a prolific author who was widely published by 1936. Hunted by the Nazis and Soviets alike, he emigrated to the USA during WWII and edited Lithuanian émigré journals, eventually returning to Lithuania in 1998. The present work is his second, 'There Was a Man Without a Leg,' a melodramatic… Read more about this item

Quarto 29x23 cm., original stiff wrappers, 16 pp., 32 plates. Number 155 of 300 numbered copies on vellum (15 were issued on Holland). Borys Solomonovich Aronson (1898-1980) was a renowned scenic designer for Broadway and Yiddish theater in the United States. Less known about him was his important role in the development of the avant-garde from his beginning in Kiev,… Read more about this item

Uncommon Romanian Surrealist journal Folio 32,5 x 24 cm. Special number on Victor Brauner. Title printed on a light green semi-cardboard label, pasted on the first page. Victor Brauner designed this number, with texts by Geo Bogza, Filip Corsa, Benjamin Fondane, Alexandru Marius, Sașa Pana, Stephan Roll, Claude Sernet, Ilarie Voronca and Pierre Reverdy. After No. 10 UNU was published in… Read more about this item

M.H. Maxy, design, texts by A. Adamov, G.Bogza,V. Brauner, F.Corsa, Gh. Dinu S. Eliad, B.Fondoianu, V. Gheorghiu, A. Marius, Moldov, L. Moussinac, S. Pană, S. Roll, C. Sernet, I. Voronca, A. Zaremba. UNU was an outlier in the avant-garde, never proclaiming itself surrealist, although the French adopted it as such. Many of the contributors were aligned with the surrealist movement,… Read more about this item

Octavo 19x13.5 cm., wrappers, 307pp. 5000 copies. Translation into Ukrainian of Karl Grünberg's Brennende Ruhr (The Ruhr in Flames) into Ukrainian by Oleg Soboliv. Grünberg (1895-1972) was a member of the SPD who wrote for leftist causes and the proletariat. Here he writes of the workers' defensive struggles against the Friekorps in 1920 Kapp-Putsch that took place in the Ruhr.… Read more about this item

Octavo 16.5x12 cm., original wrappers, 60pp. with dust wrapper and cover design by Borys Kryukov. Probably released in less than 1000 copies. Russian text. Evgenii Nezhintsev (1904-1942) was a poet and translator, who rendered many Ukrainian authors into Russian for publication. These are his first published poems. He joined the All-Russian Union of Writers the following year. Boris Kriukov (1895-1967)… Read more about this item

First and only edition. Small quarto 24x17 cm., original pictorial wrappers, 48 pp. Very small edition, under 150. The Title translates as Day and Night, or Around the Clock. Woodcut cover and five full-page woodcuts by Aleksander Bergmann, the lifelong pseudonym of Aleksander Vardi (1901-1983). Vardi achieved renown in Estonia for his Impressionist and color-saturated landscapes in… Read more about this item

Quarto 25.5 x 20.5 cm., wrappers, 57(6) pp., 16 sheets with reproductions. Kakabadze cover design, typography by I. Karseladze. No. 452 of 500 (complete series 510) numbered copies on Outhenin Chalandre fils machine-made laid paper (ten copies printed on Japan). The first publication devoted exclusively to Kakabadze and the in Georgian language. while he resided and worked in Paris.. David… Read more about this item

Octavo 17.2x13.2 cm., wrappers, 36 pp., edition of 2000 copies. Cover design by G. Chikhladze. Daisali (Ivane Sergos vua Babuadze, 1901-1937) was a Georgian nationalist poet who was the founder and leader of the Somnambulist group of modernist poets during the years of Georgian independence (1917-1922). Sometime after the Soviets assumed control of Georgia, the group was seen as… Read more about this item

Octavo 14x10.5 cm., illustrated boards, 46 pp., with original dust jacket illustrated in color. 7000 copies. (A Tale about Red-haired Motel, the Honorable Inspector, Rabbi Isaiah, and Commissar Blokh) Iosif Utkin (1903-1944) joined the Bolsheviks in 1917 and discovered his poetic voice soon after while in the Workers' Squad during the civil war in Irkutsk. He rose in the… Read more about this item

Erenburg's A vse-taki in custom box Quarto 22.5x16.5 cm., wrappers, 140(2) pp. Cover by Fernand Léger with three line drawings he executed with Jean Charlot, 16 plates hors text of ½ tone photos, drawings by Tatlin and Rodchenko. "And Yet the World Turns." Il'ia Erenburg's examination of the avant-garde in visual and literary arts as they stood at that time,… Read more about this item

Octavo 18x12.4 cm, wrappers, 56pp. Very rare publication with little circulation which documents the activities of the Turkish Workers Theater in Baku. With photo illustrations of productions, actors, and staff. It sports a superb constructivist cover by BorR (Konstantin Georgievich Ramenskii (1900-1943), an important graphic and stage designer who worked in Tiflis, Moscow and Siberia and produced many iconic images… Read more about this item

Octavo, wrappers, (56)pp. Il'ia Erenburg (1891-1967) worked successfully as a fellow traveler journalist and essayist for the Soviet state and eased though the purges, becoming most famous for his anti-Stalinist novel The Thaw,in 1954. The present work with a fine cover design by El Lissitzky. Comprised of two short stories by Erenburg: Aktsionernoe obshchestvo Merkiur-de-Riussi and Opytno-pokazatel naia koloniia No.… Read more about this item

Tartu: Loodus, 1926 Octavo, wrappers, 155pp. “Time Grimaces,” a novel in serial parts, here complete in book form while Gailit worked as a freelance writer in Tartu. He exiled with his family to Sweden where he continued to work and publish. Fine cover design by Jaan Vahtra. Worldcat locates no library holdings.

Riga: Jauna Kultura, 1925 Octavo, wrappers, 56pp., with unattributed Constructivist cover. A play in three acts by Leon Paegle (1890-1926), poet and playwright, noted for his championing of the proletarian and attacking the bourgeoisie. Very rare. No library recording in Worldcat.

Kaunas: Spaudos Fondas, 1934 Octavo, wrappers, 84pp. Vytautas Sirijos Gira (1911-1997) is known for his work as a poet, novelist and translator; his father was the famed poet Liudas Gira. The title of this poetry collection is Formaline Worms; it can also be read as Embalmed Hearts. Cover design shows constructivist influence. Rare, with only a microfiche noted by OCLC.

Tartu: Kiri ja Kunst, 1927 Octavo, wrappers, 164pp. „The Red Lily,“ a novel by Jaan Pert (1899-1953). Pert was a novelist, playwright, journalist and art critic. This is his first published novel. Pert relocated to Sweden in 1944. where he continued writing and promoting Estonian art. Unattributed abstract cover design, suggesting the hand of Peet Aren. No library copies found… Read more about this item

Tartu: Kirjastus Sonavara, 1928 Octavo, wrappers, 96pp. “Whistle of the Wanderer,” a collection of poems by Kärner (1891-1958), espousing nature poet, novelist, editor. A good deal of his poetry was set to music by contemporary composers. A Marxist, he emigrated to the USSR with the German occupation and returned with the Russian one in 1944. Shortly thereafter he descended into… Read more about this item