Illarion Pleshchinsky (1892 - 1963): linocuts

The old art college in Kazan (renamed ARKHUMAS, that is Architecture and Art Works, after the Revolution) had become a centre for the avant garde by the time this small book of linocuts was published in 1920. The sugar paper front cover was designed by Illarion Nikolaevich who was a member of the graphics collective Vsadnik. This was active only between 1920 and 1924. As you can see the paper is pretty crude and the image and lettering combines modernism and directness in the exhilirating way of Russian artists of the time. (The Russian means '1st Rider', which was also the name of the exhibition). The following year his work was included, alongside Kandinsky and Rodchenko, in the 3rd touring exhibition organised by the museums service. In the same year he made these linocut illustrations for the children's story 'The ram and the goat'. Again, I don't think these were exactly printed on japan. Each cut is tipped onto the page and the pages themselves were stapled together. But the images are far from simplisitic. Bold, modern, with a feeling for texture and form, they would have been in marked contrast to the ornate folklore art deco of Ivan Bilibin who was publishing at the same time. What early Soviet children knew about revolutionary graphics is hard to know but this image is some way from easy-reading. The flowing landscape is distinctive. As in all good picture books, stuff happens: trees guard, ponds glow, rocks watch but it's done with vigour. It isn't at all sentimental.

You can see from the cover just how cheap the production was. I would also guess this copy was bought more for parents than children. Only 500 copies were printed and it is now very rare.

I like the defining, rather doom-laden yellow behind the trees and the eccentric horns. He has taken time to express the texture of the animals' coats. The two friends are defined as the fates stand over them. You can in fact read the basic story image by image. There isn't any need for text.

The greens change to this uncanny, oriental turquoise for the image below as the wolves brew up the archetypal pot of energy. Only one real colour here, with dramatic use of white space. Please note the lack of red for fire. Pleshchinsky also had a career as a teacher of art.

Dorothy Burroughes at the zoo

I am grateful to Mike and Alison for exposing both my ignorance and poor memory (see the October post on Burroughes). As a result of a hint from them via Robin Garton, I can now offer all these delightful images by Dorothy Burroughes (c 1895 - 1963) - not to mention the scandalous titles. 'Queer birds at the zoo' dates from the early twenties. The lemur poster for Regent's Park is 1922.

No doubt the books were a success as I see Gladys Davidson wrote two. Here we have an ant-eater in profile. And below him or her, a splendid portrait of the artist herself in 1923.

She trained at the Slade and Heatherley's in London and also in Germany, not only doing fab linocuts but also making illustrations for The Bystander and the Illustrated London News. There are plenty of books illustrated by her out there as well.

Last but least this coolly fashionable creature, staring right back at us, poised, pristine, chic, perceptive. I am merely shameless.

Dorothy Burroughes (British, c1895 - 1963)

Dorothy Burroughes is an artist we know far too little about. Even the spelling of her name has caused confusion. I know nothing at all about her; the only prints by her that I have ever seen are the one illustrated here and one I used to own. Both are monochrome linocuts and very similar in style, relying for their impact on very bold cutting, powerful borders and the contrast between deep black and translucent hand-made paper. Both prints have these big structural clouds with diagonal cuts behind, with the light bouncing off wherever it can. Reproduction completely loses this effect. The subject of the one I used to own was quite opposite to one you see here: a ploughman drives a horse and plough up a far too steep hill with some very unlikely furrows zig-zagging across the picture plane. Again the same boisterous cumulus clouds. I don't think it could be anywhere but England.

Burroughes is closest to Ursula Fookes (1906 - 1991) whose linocut 'Shakespeare Memorial Theatre' 1930, is here for comparison. I don't think Fookes comes out it all that well. Just looking at these two images here, it strikes me Burroughes is the better artist although my old print was nowhere near as complex as the industrial scene. And it's this choice of subject and the deliberate feel to what she is about makes me add the famous cover of the war edition of Blast! as a tail-piece.

Incidentally, I hope the person (or institution) that now owns my old print is more deserving of it than I was at the time. (Let's face it, if I had been, I'd still have it now). They may also be interested to know it was used as the illustration for the Burroughes entry in British Printmakers, 1855 - 1955 (Garton, 1993). I can no longer lay a hand on the book and it may contain more information than I have here. It just makes you sick, it really does.