DOBOUZHINSKY (Mstislav). - Lot 157

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  3. DOBOUZHINSKY (Mstislav). - Lot 157
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Lot n° 157
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Estimation :
3000 - 3500 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 3 750EUR
DOBOUZHINSKY (Mstislav). - Lot 157
DOBOUZHINSKY (Mstislav). Veselaya azbuka. [The Happy Alphabet]. [Drawing] M. Dobouzhinsky. Brockhaus-Efron [Publishing house]. [Leningrad]. 1925. In-4 (27.5 x 20.3 cm). (32) pp.: strong paper covers, the first lithographed in color, turquoise background, an owl wearing an open book and holding a feather in its beak, framed with the title in calligraphic letters, stacks of books and many small white cards bearing the letters, titles for children published by the publisher, on the second. Unique and very rare edition of the alphabet book designed by the artist Mstislav Valerianovitch Dobouzhinsky (1875-1957). Painter and theater decorator, born in Novgorod, he studied in St. Petersburg, then in Munich. He was included in Diaghilev's exhibition at the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1906 and was soon represented internationally. After the revolution, he participated in all the major Soviet exhibitions and, until the end of the 1920s, in the major European presentations. He emigrated to the United States in 1947. One of the most sought-after works in which the letters are both the heroes of the book and its decorative elements. Cover, title page and twenty-nine lithographed paintings in black and in association of two or three colors. One black initial per page, beginning the name of the occurrence in color, and a dancing frame of all variations of that letter. All letters are calligraphied by the artist. His playful graphic games are adapted to the wonderful central painting, highlighted by a printed quatrain. Extraordinary inventiveness in the choice of illustrations, almost all signed and dated - the illustrator worked during the summer and autumn of 1924 on the Happy Alphabet. Dobouzhinsky offers us his self-portrait for the letter J, Zhivopisets, the painter, after the acrobat, the scuba diver, the hedgehog and before the inventor, the ice skater, the flood, the glutton, the frightened ostrich, the coward, Etna, etc. Illustrated dedication printed on the reverse of the title page: "I dedicate my drawings to Valerik". Valerian Dobuzhinsky is the nephew of the artist, adopted by him in the early 1920s. In the center of the last page, the three letters, abolished by the reform of the alphabet of 1918, appear under a bell, on a pedestal, as in a museum. Very well preserved work.
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