VLADIMIR MAYAKOVSKY (1893-1930) ROSTA WINDOWS. Group of 4 posters. Circa 1920.
Each approximately 26 1/2x15 3/4 inches, 67 1/2x40 cm.
Condition varies, generally A-: creases and wrinkles in image. Each two-sheets.
In the years immediately following Russia's October Revolution, the avant-garde artists devoted all of their creative efforts to support the Bolsheviks. Their primary vehicle was posters they designed for the Russian Telegraphic Agency (ROSTA) that are familiarly referred to as "Rosta Windows." Modeled after the traditional Russian lubok, wood block prints, these stenciled sheets were hung in stations, on buildings, and in empty shop windows. Their messages were news-related, but always pro-party and propagandistic. Generally, the mini-series consisted of four images, but in some cases as many as 12 were used. "The dominant figure in the ROSTA collective was the poet and artist Vladimir Maykovsky" (Bolshevik Poster p. 72). Mayakovsky was the renaissance avant-garde reactionary: an activist from the age of 14, he entered the Moscow School of Painting in 1911. He founded Lef, a key magazine for the avant-garde movement, was a poet, playwright and graphic designer. He worked tirelessly on the ROSTA posters, designing thousands of them, and acting as the virtual director of the studio. He took his own life in 1930. All of the ROSTA windows were numbered: this is number 67.

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