IZO

On way home today, at Zurich airport (yes, I fly cheap zig-zags...), I bought a (probably quite old - 03/2009) copy of the German mag  Artinvestor. It doesn't have anything to say about Russian art. But the Germans are pre-occupied with the idea that Obama's policies will lead to inflation, possibly hyper-inflation, and this issue contains an analysis from Wolfgang Wilke, a private art-market analyst, about what happens to the price of art in a high-inflation environment. He takes the example of the print market in Germany in the period 1914-23, which ended with hyper-inflation and currency reform. Apparently the prices of the most expensive prints (in those days, by artists such as Zorn and Whistler) ran ahead of quite serious inflation in the period 1914-20, but in the period of hyper-inflation 1920-23 couldn't keep up. Wilke further notes that (a) after the currency reform the prints retained much value, whereas cash didn't and (b) the value of works by most of the top-selling print artists of the period 1915-20 is much less today than it was then (presumably he means in real terms, adjusted for inflation).

An IZO reader writes: "I felt that Bolshoi Gorod lost its mojo when Alexey Kazakov stopped editing it but this article made me want to read it again". The Russian penal administration has defined 78 means of escape from jail - and illustrated them (Bolshoi Gorod, in Russian, with illustrations) (thanks, RA)!

Under a sheet:

Under a wooden box:

Some of Russia's top illustrators; more names are suggested in the comments (AdMe). Below, an image by Alexei Lyapunov and Lena Erlikh.

Red Star was a Soviet sidekick of the Teen Titans (Copydude, via GVO).

Massive torrents of "Soviet futuristic magazine covers" (boingboing) and Lost Arcade Games of the Soviet Union (Wired) (thanks, MK). Below: a cover of The Technology of Youth from 1950.

Soviet Film Posters in the Silent Era is an exhibition of early Soviet cinema posters at the National Film Centre, Tokyo (Japan Times):

All the posters here were gifted to the museum by Ippei Fukuro (1897-1971), an enigmatic figure who, according to museum curator Yoko Akasaki, operated as a freelance translator and researcher, living on and off in the Soviet Union throughout the 1920s.  "He translated Russian books for children and books about mountains," Akasaki explains. "He was also a pioneer who presented Russian science-fiction novels in Japan. He spent several periods in the Soviet Union before returning in 1930, when he brought back most of the posters. Even after that, he continued to have posters sent."

On Alexey Brodovitch, the first art director of Harper's Bazaar (Chic Today) (thanks, MK).

Wonderful and Rare Russian Book: V. I. Lenin Drawings for Children (eBay) (thanks, MK).

Blame it on the Bear: anti-Russian cartoons inspired by the Russia-Ukraine gas payment crisis (Alex Log).

Batman was in Russia in 1990. He even saved Gorbachev (zloy-alex).

From Marat Guelman's blog:

лучшее про кризис


чье не знаю

The obscure career of Bohumil Konečný, 1905-81 (Tony Ozuna/Prague Post):

Bohumil Konečný ... has been unjustly ignored, and ultimately forgotten by Czechs due to an unfortunate turn of events at the peak of his career.  ... In 1965, Konečný had made an acquaintance with an admirer of his work, Petr Sadecký. ... In 1967, Sadecký emigrated to the West, though he kept in touch with Konečný, sending him letters and postcards. What Konečný didn’t know was that Sadecký was busy trying to pass himself off as the author of Konečný’s works, first for Karel May Publishers in Germany, then more ambitiously as the discoverer of a group of disaffected Soviet dissidents who, he claimed, had created a heroine named Octobriana, a voluptuous woman with superhuman powers. In 1971, in London, Sadecký published and promoted a false samizdat book, Octobriana and the Russian Underground, which briefly became a media sensation. David Bowie was so inspired by Octobriana that he wrote songs about her intended for a film. In reality, however, Octobriana was the Amazona character originally drawn by Konečný, simply altered by the imposter Petr Sadecký.

A collection of Putin cartoons (Cartoonist Group) (thanks, MK).

The graphic artist Boris Efimov (Yefimov) has died, aged 108 (Daily Telegraph). It's a strange business, thinking about the depths of time that extremely old people link to. About 1980, when working as a caretaker at a block of flats in the Marylebone Road, I got to know a gentleman, a Mr Solomon, who was very nearly one hundred years old. He came from a family of similarly long-lived people. One of his relatives - maybe a great-grandfather - had told him, way back circa 1885-90, about how he, as a child, had seen Napoleon in Trieste. I looked it up: that would have been in 1797, I think.