Aleksandr Deineka (1899-1969) : an avant-garde for the proletariat
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142. Gustavs Klucis Piatiletku prevratim v chetyrekhletku [We Will Transform the Five-Year Plan into a Four-Year Plan], 1930. Poster Lithography, letterpress, 101.5 x 73.7 cm Text at top and bottom: With the eff orts of millions of workers involved in socialist construction, we will transform the five-year plan into a four-year plan Diagonal text: From shock brigades to shock workshops and factories! GOSIZDAT, Moscow Print run: 30,000. Price: 35 kopeks Collection Merrill C. Berman Fundación Juan March
Fundación Juan March 196 143. Gustavs Klucis Untitled
Dummy for the cover of Za proletarskoe iskusstvo [For Proletarian Art], ca. 1932 Photography. Illuminated gelatin silver, vintage copy, 21.3 x 16.2 cm Collection Merrill C. Berman 144. Gustavs Klucis Poster reproduced on the cover of Za proletarskoe iskusstvo [For Proletarian Art], no. 5, 1932 Magazine. Letterpress, 29.8 x 21.3 cm Text: The victory of socialism in our country is guaranteed, the foundation of the socialist economy has been secured. “The reality of our production plan is the millions of workers creating the new life.” I. Stalin OGIZ-IZOGIZ, Moscow Collection Merrill C. Berman 144b and 144c. Details Fundación Juan March
Fundación Juan March 198 145.
Za proletarskoe iskusstvo [For Proletarian Art], no. 9, 1931 Magazine. Letterpress, 30 x 21.5 cm OGIZ-IZOGIZ, Moscow Archivo España-Rusia 146.
Iskusstvo v massy [Art to the Masses], no. 2 (10), 1930 Magazine. Letterpress, 30 x 23 cm AKhR, Moscow Archivo España-Rusia 147.
Za proletarskoe iskusstvo [For Proletarian Art], no. 3–4, 1931 Magazine cover Letterpress, 30.5 x 21.5 cm OGIZ-IZOGIZ, Moscow-Leningrad Archivo España-Rusia
Znanie–sila [Knowledge is Power], no. 15, 1931 Magazine cover Letterpress, 30 x 21 cm Molodaia Gvardiia, Moscow Archivo España-Rusia
Stroika [Construction], no. 16, August 5, 1930 Magazine. Letterpress, 30 x 22 cm Krasnaia Gazeta, Leningrad Archivo España-Rusia 150. Nauka i tekhnika [Science and Technology], no. 2, 1930 Magazine. Letterpress, 31 x 23 cm Izdatel’stvo Krasnaia Gazeta Leningrad Archivo España-Rusia Fundación Juan March Fundación Juan March 200 151. Aleksandr Deineka Cover for Krasnaia panorama [Red Panorama], no. 4, February 5, 1930 Magazine. Off set, 27.9 x 20.3 cm Krasnaia Gazeta, Leningrad Price: 10 kopeks Collection Merrill C. Berman 152. Aleksandr Deineka Nado samim stat’ spetsialistami . . . [We Need to Become Specialists], 1931 Poster. Lithography, 144 x 102 cm Text: “We need to become specialists, masters of aff airs; we need to turn our faces to technical knowledge” (Stalin) IZOGIZ, Moscow-Leningrad Print run: 30,000 Collection Merrill C. Berman Fundación Juan March Fundación Juan March 202 153. Iurii Pimenov My stroim sotsialism [We are Building Socialism], 1928 Poster. Lithography, 68.5 x 53.3 cm GOSIZDAT, Moscow-Leningrad Print run: 35,000 Collection Merrill C. Berman Fundación Juan March 154. Iurii Pimenov Cover and illustrations for the book of poems by Aleksandr Zharov, Osen’ i vesna [Autumn and Spring], 1933 Book. Letterpress and lithography, 30 x 23 cm Khudozhestvennaia literatura, Moscow Archivo España-Rusia 154b. Illustration on page 8: “October People” Fundación Juan March
155. Aleksandr Deineka Prevratim Moskvu v obraztsovyi sotsialisticheskii gorod proletarskogo gosudarstva [We Will Transform Moscow into an Exemplary Socialist City of the Proletarian State], 1931. Poster Lithography, 144. 8 x 208.3 cm IZOGIZ, Moscow-Leningrad Print run: 5,000. Price: 1 ruble Private collection Fundación Juan March Fundación Juan March 206 156. Supplement in the children’s magazine Murzilka, no. 10, ca. 1930 Magazine. Letterpress, 29.5 x 24 cm VLKSM Central Committee, Moscow Archivo España-Rusia 156b. Cutout with model of the Palace of the Soviets by Boris Iofan
Da zdravstruet 1 maia! [Hail the First of May!], ca. 1930 Flag. Hand-painted cotton fabric 105 x 72.1 cm Fundación José María Castañé Fundación Juan March
157. Solomon Telingater Cover of Stroitel’stvo Moskvy [The Construction of Moscow], no. 10, 1929 Magazine. Letterpress, 30.5 x 23 cm Mossovet, Moscow Archivo España-Rusia 158. Detail of the facade of the Hotel Moscow by architect Aleksei Shchusev Moscow 1932–38 (demolished in 2001) Plaster, 47 x 60 x 2 cm Archivo España-Rusia Fundación Juan March
208 Fundación Juan March 159. Aleksandr Deineka Mekhaniziruem Donbass! [We are Mechanizing the Donbass!], 1930 Poster. Lithography 106.6 x 73.6 cm IZOGIZ, Moscow-Leningrad Print run: 25,000 Collection Merrill C. Berman
Aleksandr Zharov Stikhi i ugol [Poems and Coal], 1931 Book. Letterpress, 17 x 12.5 cm Molodaia Gvardiia, Moscow Blurb on back cover: The problem of coal becomes an important political and economic task: the rapid tempos of socialist construction are impossible without its solution (Resolution of the Central Committee of the VKP[b]) Archivo España-Rusia Fundación Juan March 210 Fundación Juan March 162. Aleksei Gan Vystavka rabot Vladimira Maiakovskogo [Exhibition of Mayakovsky’s Work], 1931 Poster for the exhibition that took place at the Literature Museum of the Lenin Public Library in 1931 Lithography and letterpress, 64.8 x 46 cm Glavlit, Moscow Print run: 2,000 Collection Merrill C. Berman 163. Vladimir Mayakovsky Vo ves’ golos [At the Top of My Voice], 1931 Book. Letterpress, 19 x 12.5 cm Khudozhestvennaia literatura Moscow-Leningrad Archivo España-Rusia Fundación Juan March 212 164. Vladimir Mayakovsky Sochineniia v odnom tome [Collected Works in One Volume], 1940 Book. Letterpress, 26.1 x 20.6 cm Khudozhestvennaia literatura, Moscow Fundación José María Castañé Fundación Juan March
Fundación Juan March 214 Fundación Juan March 165. Aleksandr Deineka Dadim proletarskie kadry Uralo-Kuzbassu! [We Will Provide Proletarian Cadres to Ural-Kuzbass!], 1931. Poster Lithograph on canvas, 68.5 x 101.6 cm Main text: We will provide proletarian cadres to Ural-Kuzbass Text with pointing arrow at top: To the Ural Province, to the Tatar Republic. Text with pointing arrow at bottom: To the Lower City and Western Siberian Territory IZOGIZ, Moscow Print run: 10,000. Price: 50 kopeks Collection Merrill C. Berman Fundación Juan March
216 166. Solomon Telingater, E. Gutnov, N. Spirov Oktiabr’. Borba za proletarskie klassovie pozitsii na fronte prostranstvennykh iskusstv [October. The Struggle for Proletarian Class Positions at the Spatial Arts Front], February 1931 Book. Letterpress, 26.7 x 19 cm IZOGIZ, Moscow Private collection
Zheleznodorozhnoe depo [Railroad Depot], ca. 1928 Watercolor, ink, pen on paper 29.9 x 44.8 cm State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow Inv. RS-5413
Zhenskie brigady v sovkhoze [Women’s Brigades to the State Farm!], 1931 Tempera on paper, 70.5 x 70.8 cm State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow Inv. 28904 Fundación Juan March Fundación Juan March 169. Aleksandr Deineka Kto kogo?” [“Who Will Beat Whom?”], 1932 Oil on canvas, 131 x 200 cm State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow Inv. ZHS-706 Fundación Juan March
Fundación Juan March 220 170. Mikhail Razulevich Realnost’ nashei programmy – eto zhivie liudi [The Reality of Our Program is Living People], 1932. Sketch for poster Letterpress, 38.3 x 25.4 cm Text: “The reality of our program is living people, it is me and you, our will to work, our readiness to work for the new, our decisiveness to fulfill the plan.” Stalin Collection Merrill C. Berman Fundación Juan March
171. P. Urban URSS en construction [USSR in Construction], no. 4, 1932 Magazine. Letterpress, 42 x 30 cm OGIZ-IZOGIZ, Moscow French edition of SSSR na stroike Collection MJM, Madrid Fundación Juan March
222 173. Nikolai Troshin URSS en construction [USSR in Construction], no. 1, 1933 Magazine. Letterpress, 42 x 30 cm OGIZ-IZOGIZ, Moscow French edition of SSSR na stroike Collection MJM, Madrid 172.
USSR in Construction, no. 2, 1932 Magazine. Letterpress, 42 x 30 cm OGIZ-IZOGIZ, Moscow English edition of SSSR na stroike Fundación José María Castañé Fundación Juan March 174. Mauricio Amster Cover and layout of the book by M. Ilyin, Moscú tiene un plan [Moscow Has a Plan], 1932 Book. Letterpress and linocut, 21 x 15 cm Ediciones Oriente, Madrid Archivo España-Rusia Fundación Juan March 224 Fundación Juan March 175.
Piatiletnii plan pischevoi promyshlennosti . . . [The Five-Year Plan of the Food Production Industry], ca. 1932 Poster. Lithography and letterpress 103.5 x 72.7 cm Text on white at top: “We are not of those who are frightened by diff iculty.” (Stalin) Black text at top: The five-year plan of the food production industry of the USSR Red text at center: We will raise the productivity of labor / We will realize the plan of great work Publishers of the Central Committee of the Food Industry Union, Leningrad Print run: 1,000 Collection Merrill C. Berman 176. Vasilii El’kin Proizvodstvo [Production], ca. 1932 Design for poster. Collage: letterpress, cut paper and pencil, 55.8 x 41.9 cm Private collection Fundación Juan March 226 177. Aleksandr Deineka V period pervoi piatiletki [During the Period of the First Five-Year Plan], 1933 Poster. Lithography 101.6 x 71.1 cm Text: “During the period of the First Five-Year Plan we were able to organize the enthusiasm and zeal of the new construction and achieved decisive success. Now we should supplement this matter with the enthusiasm and zeal for the mastery of new factories and new technique.” Stalin OGIZ-IZOGIZ, Moscow- Leningrad Print run: 25,000 Price: 70 kopeks Collection Merrill C. Berman 178. Vasilii El’kin 5 in 4 Jahre [5 in 4 Years], 1933 Design for book cover Letterpress, gouache, pencil and cut paper, 19.5 x 27.8 cm Collection Merrill C. Berman 179. Aleksandr Rodchenko and Varvara Stepanova URSS en construction [USSR in Construction], no. 8, August 1936 Magazine. Letterpress, 42 x 30 cm OGIZ-IZOGIZ, Moscow French edition of SSSR na stroike Collection MJM, Madrid Fundación Juan March 228 180. Aleksandr Deineka Polden’ [Noon], 1932 Oil on canvas, 59.5 x 80 cm State Russian Museum, Saint Petersburg, Inv. ZHB-1816 Fundación Juan March 181. Georgii Petrusov URSS en construction [USSR in Construction], no. 1, January 1936 Magazine. Letterpress, 42 x 30 cm OGIZ-IZOGIZ, Moscow French edition of SSSR na stroike Collection MJM, Madrid Fundación Juan March
230 Fundación Juan March 182. Aleksandr Deineka Bezrabotnye v Berline [The Unemployed in Berlin], 1932 Oil on canvas, 118.5 x 185 cm State Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow Inv. ZHS-704 Fundación Juan March
183. Aleksandr Deineka Da zdravstvuet pobeda sotsializma vo vsem mire!, [Hail the Victory of Socialism the World Over!], 1933 Poster. Lithography, 68.6 x 200.7 cm Bottom left: Down with capitalism, the system of slavery, poverty, and hunger! Bottom middle: Hail the USSR, the shock brigade of the world proletariat! Bottom right: Hail the Soviets and heroic Red Army of China! OGIZ-IZOGIZ, Moscow-Leningrad Print run: 15,050 Collection Merrill C. Berman Fundación Juan March Fundación Juan March 234 II 1935 Deineka in Stalin’s Metro Fundación Juan March Fundación Juan March 236 Fundación Juan March Fundación Juan March The Maiakovskaia Station "My head ¡s brimmmg with ¡deas! Building sites across thecountry, tractorsand farming machinery helping with workon vast kolkhoz fields, gardens in bloom, fruits ripening, airplanes Crossing the skiesday and night, the young working heroically and resting blissfully. Lifein the USSR pulses at full pacetwenty- four hours a day. And thus we agreed on the theme'A Day and Night in the Land of Soviets'." (Aleksandr Deineka)
Underground Explorations in the Synthesis of the Arts: Deineka in Moscow's Metro Alessandro De Magistris History of Architecture Professor at the Politecnico de Milano Forty meters below ground, a morning sky mosaic, clear and bright, meets people as they enter the platform. lf they feel better as a resu/t, if they feel chipper, the artist will have fulfilled his mission. A. Deineka, "Mozaika metro;' Tvorchestvo11 (1939) Aleksandr Deineka helped to embellish the Soviet capital's underground system by making an ex tremely significant contribution to two of its stations: Maiakovskaia and Novokuznetskaia (also called Do netskaia for a time). The projects, which became op erational a few years apart, were linked by an obvious thread of continuity: in their technical execution, in the dynamism of the overall design, and in the art ist's unmistakable stylistic manner, whose figurative nature, seemingly far removed from abstraction, nevertheless continued to establish a dialogue with the avant-garde through its vividness and chromatic aggressiveness, as well as its narrative line aimed at celebrating fragments of "heroic" everyday life in the land of the Soviets in the phase of "achieved" social ism. When contextualized, however, these projects attained different outcomes. They reflect the diverse range of historical and creative situations as well as different approaches to the ideal of an integrally con ceived artistic environment that represented one of the predominant themes in the line of thinking of aca demic institutions and in the creative commitment of the Soviet painters, sculptors and architects involved in giving form-in public buildings and factories alike-to the new face of "triumphant" socialism.1 While the decorative factor in Novokuznetskaia, a station designed by lvan Taranov (1906- 1979) and Nina Bykova (1907-1997)-authors of the under ground hall and the entrance pavilion to the Sokol niki station-and opened at the height of the war, is effectively albeit conventionally incorporated in the compositional economy of the underground work,2 in Maiakovskaia station, built atan earlier date, Deine ka helped to write one of the most original and mean ingful pages of monumental art in the 1930s-indeed of the entire Stalinist period-thanks to the intimate dialogue established between the mosaics and the architectonic setting, which is spacious and well lit. lt is an extremely lofty example of Gesamtkunst werk or synthesis of the arts, fruit of an outstanding convergence of material circumstances, ideas, and people: a combination whose outcome is fortunately still on view-something not to be taken for granted in the building frenzy of contemporary Moscow-for the millions of people who consciously cross the magnificent underground hall that forms the struc tural backbone of the station named after the great Russian poet, Vladimir Mayakovsky.3 In order to understand its full value and historical repercussions, it is crucial to situate Deineka's cre ative contribution in the historical framework of what the Soviet regime's shrewd propaganda machine called "the world's most beautiful metropolitan,"4 at the hub of a powerful mytho-poetic activity, and which-over and above any rhetorical emphasis was the central work in the series of undertakings called u pon to attest to the validity and ambitions of the regime, in one of the most tragic phases of Soviet history5-the period bridging a major crisis at the be ginning of the decade which led to one of the most serious famines in Russian history, the heightening of the reign of terror during the Ezhovshchina [Ezhov regime], and the outbreak of the Second World War, the prospect of which had dictated the typological and constructive choices of the enterprise, opening the way to more demanding and hitherto untried de sign and planning solutions when compared to those previously singled out. lnsofar as the urban milieu was concerned, the Metro was actually the Stalin ian accomplishment par excel/ence in the pre-war period. As Lazar Kaganovich6-who at that time oc cu pied a prominent position in the party Secretariat and was the main political figure, along with Nikita Khrushchev, behind the huge construction site7-de clared in a speech delivered on the occasion of its Fundación Juan March inauguration, Soviet workers would see their future taking shape in the subway: with this victory over underground problems, "the government of work ers and peasants" showed its capacity to create in any place a "prosperous and culturally elevated en vironment."8 The decision to start construction of the Mos cow Metro was taken by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in Ju ne 1931. lnaugurated barely four years later, it was sub sequently extended until the outbreak of the war which, as we have said, did not bring work to a halt, at least over more than twenty-five kilometers. lt thus represented a key factor in the city's "recon struction" strategy, helping to consolidate its radio centric layout, lending visibility to the new urban order, and heralding the new architectonic order that was making its way into the context of the "General Plan of Reconstruction," whose approval and development periods overlapped, not haphaz ardly, with those of the Metro infrastructure.9 The program was drawn up in detail, and with a great deal of lucidity, in a publication printed by the Academy of Architecture in 1936 to celebrate the end of the first phase of construction. lts stations were "elements of an original underground city" in tended to represent "an inseparable component of the entire urban ensemble, the continuation of the street under the ground:' 1º The explicit val u es, not just technological but also and above ali political and ideological of the undertaking and its placement at the heart of the decisive cultural state of affairs that took shape in the early 1930s and led to the assertion of socialist realism as proclaimed in August 1934 at the First All-Union Congress of Soviet Writers, lent the op eration a significance that went well beyond the scope of a simple transportation infrastructure conceived in a strictly functional and rationalis tic vein, as with the main works being undertaken elsewhere at the time. Suffice it to compare it with the extensions of the underground systems in Ber lin and London, taken, a long with the Paris system, as references by Soviet technicians in the prelimi nary development phase, that led to an extremely pithy and concise project, with a strictly modern ist hallmark, which was subsequently abandoned. Forming part of a pivotal wave of reconstruction of the Soviet capital, the Moscow Metro was called u pon to be not only a technologically "ex- mm emplary" achievement, as the slogan in a famous 1932 manifesto went ("A model underground for the proletarian capital"), but also a kind of ideal representation of the socialist city that was being built above ground. All of which goes to explain the amazing mobilization of material and human resources, as well as technical, design and cre ative intelligence, circles into which Deineka was summoned at a certain point, given his renown and fame, enhanced by recent experiences in interior decoration such as the mural titled Civil Aviation executed for the kitchen of the Fili air plane factory (1932) and the mural for the new People's Commissariat of Agriculture designed by Aleksei Shchusev (1933),11 a late and monumental expression of constructivism. Such experiences were part of the general context of reflection and mobilization of creative forces, one of whose im portant outcomes in 1935 was the Studio of Monu mental Painting at the lnstitute of Architecture in Moscow run by Lev Bruni and Vladimir Favorskii, already Deineka's tutor when he was studying at the VKhUTEMAS.12 The general plan approved by the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom) on March 21, 1933, originally provided for a network of about eighty kilometers set out in a ring-like layout made up of five radial lines and a circular line, the con struction of which was staggered over five building phases. The first, the Gor'kovskaia line linking So kolniki to the Gorky Central Park of Culture and Lei sure in the city center, was inaugurated on May 14, 1935. The second phase of construction led to the extension of the line running from the Arbat to Kiev station in the west and Kursk station in the east, cre ating a radial line along the historie Tverskaia road (named Gorky Street from 1935 to 1990) that went as far as Dinamo stadium and then pushed on fur ther to the garden town of Sokol in the north of the city: it went into service in September 1938. The third phase involved the eastward extension of the Arbatsko-Pokrovskaia line as far as lzmailovskii Park and the Gor' kovskaia line as far as Paveletskaia sta tion and the ZIS automobile works (Avtozavodskaia station) to the south, guaranteeing service to the areas of maximum industrial concentration in the capital: planned for 1937-38, it was not actually built until the latter stages of the war. lt was precisely in the second and third con struction phases that the great artist was involved. He thus operated within a framework still exempt from the nationalistic and triumphalistic overtones that are a feature of the circle line, whose plan, re worked in relation to the development of the Gar den Ring (Sadovoe kol'tso), would not be complet ed-with various modifications-until after the end of the wa r, between 1949 a nd 1953, smacki ng of the imperial climate of the late Stalinist period.13 The works of the second phase, which include the outstanding example of the Maiakovskaia sta tion, had a whiff of the "transitional" atmosphere befitting a period that was still looking for an inno vative style based on expressiveness and monu mentality, and they benefited in particular from the fact that the organization of the works now carne under the control of the People's Commissariat of Heavy lndustry (NKTP-Narkomtiazhprom) headed by Sergo Ordzhonikidze,14 who ensured the sup ply of materials, encouraged the rational organi zation of labor and promoted the use of the most advanced constructive solutions, introducing a vis ible caesura in the still perfectly comprehensible plans for and spatial organization of the Metro sta tions. lt was probably this "patronage" which facili tated the provision of stainless steel, an essential element when it carne to the finishing of the sta tions, by the aeronautical industry. The decision to opt for deep-level tunneling and the specification of the station features, de fined by a three-nave plan in which the central cor ridor leading to the platforms at the sides assumed a decisive structural salience, as well as the need to construct spaces that were not oppressive, but elo quent and educational, in which it was easy to find one's way and move around-i.e., pleasant places, immediately practica! to interpret but also ideolog ically readable by a population that included large numbers of recent immigrants, often fleeing from the violence and harshness of collectivization, and in many cases illiterate-all contributed to make the Metro a special field for experimentation and research in planning and design. This experimen tation was inspired by a series of principies com mon to the design and planning solutions which, in a programmatic way, encompassed diverse ar eas: the rejection of the sense of claustrophobia, the need to break up monotony,15 attention to the chromatic properties of materials, and the use of artificial lighting as a basic element in underground architectonic organization.16 Fundación Juan March V. Deni (Denisov) and N. Dolgorukov “The Metro is Here!” Lithography and letterpress photomontage over three panels. Manifesto. 1935 (Casabella 679) The result arrived at by some of the most im- portant figures in Soviet architectural culture, sum- moned to take part in this fierce creative competi- tion, was a complex of environments (pavilions above ground, connecting areas . . .) with diff er- ent and highly distinctive monumental paces and rhythms. When observed in the rapid succession that the modern means of transport ushered in, these mi- lieus reflected the unusual prospect of an architec- tural culture in search of the expression of moder- nity, incorporating and reformulating—a key term was “creative assimilation”—all the historical periods right up to contemporary developments: not only Egyptian architecture, the cryptoporticus 17 of Roman architecture and the many variations of classicism, but also recent tendencies, from the “rationalistic” interventions of Nikolai Ladovskii (Krasnye Vorota entrance pavilion and Dzerzhinskaia underground station) to what was subsequently known as the art deco style, evident in the design and the decorative features of many stations planned in the latter half of the 1930s, in comparison with current developments in North American architecture and reality, to which the USSR paid special heed by way of study missions and correspondence in magazines. The timetables and typological options provide an essential key to understanding how the infrastruc- ture, conceived from the outset as architectonic “en- sembles” and characterized by wide-ranging envi- ronments intended as public places by definition—a framework for the transit of large masses of popula- tion—became a terrain particularly suitable for airing issues of monumental propaganda at the hub of the theoretical debates of the 1930s, precisely by being one of the keystones of socialist realism. Following the decorative example of the great restaurants in Kazan railroad station and in the Moskva Hotel, but also the avant-garde experiment carried out in the oformlenie [design] of certain industrial plants, such as the Stalingrad Tractor Factory (STZ), the dialogic input of the various artistic and planning disciplines found in the underground, and especially in the sta- tions built during the second phase, an ideal test bench for decorative solutions with a powerful visual and propagandist impact. It is safe to say that, in a more systematic and coherent way than any other planned intervention, the Moscow underground bears witness to the col- laboration between artists of diff erent disciplines oriented toward the creation of a total work of art: a Fundación Juan March |
