The return of oblivious names under the project "A + A"

MOSCOW. At the end of the Non / fiction fair, a presentation of reprints of children’s books from 20-30 was held.

Thanks to the “A + A” project, modern children will be able to get acquainted with the books that their great-grandmothers once read. The first selection of reprints of rare children’s books of 20-30. from the publisher Ad Marginem, created in close collaboration with the gallery owner Ildar Galeev and the studio ABCdesign - a gift for fans of the Russian avant-garde. The illustrations for the books of Evgeny Schwartz, Valentin Kataev, Osip Mandelstam, presented at Non / fiction, were worked by talented painters and graphic artists: Vera Ermolaeva, Evgenia Evenbakh, Tatyana Mavrina, Nikolai Lapshin, Valery Alfeevsky, Tatyana Pravosudovich. Practically for each of these bright and cheerful books there is a difficult, sometimes tragic story. The “Dogs” by Vera Ermolaeva will remind of the remarkable artist, a follower of Malevich, who stood at the origins of UNOVIS and created sketches for the opera “Victory over the Sun” by Kruchenykh and Matyushin. Her drawings were adorned by the magazines Chizh and Hedgehog, books by Kharms, Zabolotsky, Vvedensky, Schwartz, Cervantes, Goethe. Leg paralysis due to falling from a horse in childhood was not an obstacle to an active creative life. After the assassination of Kirov, Ermolaev was arrested on far-fetched charges, and in 1937 she was shot in a camp in Kazakhstan.

The book "Balls" by Osip Mandelstam with illustrations by Nikolai Lapshin is from the category of extreme rarities. "We tremble on a thread, we want and fly away." Only multi-colored air bubbles managed to escape and escape. The author of these lines was destined to die in a transit camp in 1938. To the question from Radio Giraffe, “How do you live, crucians?” Its author, Valentin Kataev, would answer: “It is difficult.” His own life was full of secrets and contradictions. All his life he had to hide his participation in the White movement, he miraculously escaped execution. He defended Mandelstam, helped him during the period of persecution, in the 60s he opposed the rehabilitation of Stalin. The family of the artist Tatyana Pravosudovich, who presented Radio with her illustrations, did not escape repression. Her father, a professor and designer of steam locomotives, was declared a pest and shot in 1929 along with a group of the same "enemies of the people." Amazing stories await readers of the "Market" Eugene Schwartz with illustrations of Eugene Evenbach, who was part of the circle of Petrov-Vodkin, and the "Park of Culture and Rest" Valery Alfeevsky and Tatyana Mavrina.

The difficult fate of these books and those still awaiting their turn was predetermined by their background. The “A + A” project was conceived in order to return them to readers and to remind about talented people whose names have been trying to oblivion for many years.

Elena Tanakova © Gallerix.ru