Girl Meets Tractor
Soviet-era posters fall into two broad styles: the early avant-garde posters of Rodchenko, Lissitzky and the Stenberg brothers, Vladamir and Georgii, and the later Social Realism style typified by Boris Vladimirski.

The Russian avant-garde movement paralleled the developments in Western Europe (at the Bauhaus in Germany, for example) featuring the use of abstract images, geometric shapes, bold colors and typography as a graphic constituent. While perhaps less known in the West at the time, more recently uncovered avant-garde works reveal a mastery of modernist technique and artistic vision equal, if not superior, to that found in Western graphic arts. “The interest in the avant-garde was always there because it was a very important period in art history from the ’20s to the ’30s,” Grigorian says.

The Russian avant-garde artists experimented with typography, collage and photomontage in ways that presaged today’s computer-based graphic design. “What the Russians were doing by hand in the 1920s and ’30s is what artists are doing with Photoshop today,” says Nicholas Lowry, president and director of posters at Swann Galleries in New York. “It makes me wonder what these artists would produce with today’s technology.”

The Social Realism period lasted much longer, about six decades, making posters of this type more readily available. Decreed by Stalin in 1932, Social Realism required all art to reflect “realistic” portrayals of Soviet life intended to promote communist goals and values. Whereas the art of Russia’s czarist period reflected aristocratic values, Social Realism had as its aim the elevation of the common worker, both in factories and on farms.

In their efforts to depict everyday life and values, however, the Soviet artists invented a world that seems as devoid of realism as the work of American painter Norman Rockwell. As propaganda, Social Realism posters often carried both anti-capitalist and anti-fascist themes; later posters moved away from a pure realist style to include deliberately unappealing caricatures of foreign leaders.

Ironically, while Social Realism posters promoted the proletariat, the period represents a decline into more bourgeois artistic values. Still, its imagery holds widespread appeal. For Westerners, the images have a certain kitsch appeal. For Russians, their interest lies primarily in documenting a period in their history. As Lowry puts it, “One man’s kitsch is another’s living nightmare.”

A 43-year-old American expat collector living in Prague, who asked Worth not to use his name, explains his attraction to Soviet-era posters stems from what he refers to as the “aesthetics of critique.” He adds: “I do it to preserve the history of a grand idea spoiled by miserable humans. History will do its best to edit into the absurd, but I find in the face of Lenin, and even Stalin, the failure of hope; and a criticism, a just criticism, of the not-much-better victors.”

Capitalist Revolution
In April, an auction of rare modernist posters organized by Swann Galleries drove home the increasing value of Soviet propaganda posters. Several posters brought more than double their previous record prices when private collectors outbid dealers on the top lots.

Lissitzky, one of the foremost avant-garde artists of the ’20s and ’30s, is also considered one of the founding fathers of the constructivist movement; he is renowned for his use of photomontage and new typography styles. At the Swann auction, Lissitzky’s constructivist composition, Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge, printed in 1926, sold for $41,400, and his photomontage advertisement for the Russian exhibition at the Kunstgewerbe Museum in Zurich, USSR Russische Ausstellung, Zuruch, printed in 1929, sold for a record $64,400. Both surpassed estimates.

Anton Lavinsky’s photomontage for Sergei Eisenstein’s first film, Strike, printed in 1924, sold for $12,650; Rodchenko’s advertisement for the film, One Sixth of the World, printed in 1926, sold for $29,900; N. Chelovsky’s Man with the Movie Camera, printed in 1928, sold for $34,500; and Klutsis’ Development of Transportation Under the 5-Year Plan, printed in 1928, sold for $7,475. Klutsis is considered the most prolific practitioner of the art of photomontage, and his posters are becoming increasingly collectible. Despite his contributions to the communist cause throughout the ’20s and ’30s, however, Klutsis was arrested and executed by Stalin in 1938.

The recent five-figure sales notwithstanding, there remains a general consensus among dealers and collectors that these artists are still underappreciated, and that values will continue to rise. “The material is phenomenal,” Lowry boasts. “Good Russian constructivism is among the most sophisticated and exciting graphic design of the 20th century.”

According to Lowry, the market for Soviet poster art saw a bubble form in the late 1980s. But that bubble soon burst as a handful of collectors flooded the market. “Prior to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet Union, this material was hard as hell to come by,” he explains. “A couple of daredevil, genius dealers in the ’80s really created this market. The material was selling for a lot of money and soon found its way into the collections of the MoMA [in New York] and the Getty [in Los Angeles].”

Unlike contemporary art, wherein the artist’s fame and reputation can often overshadow the work itself, Soviet-era poster art is first and foremost about the images. Iconic symbols such as happy peasants, tractors and trains by unknown artists often sell for as much or more than lesser images from well-known artists. “None of these names are mainstream,” Lowry says. “They are known only to connoisseurs.”

But this is changing as the public becomes more aware of what Lowry refers to as the blue-chip artists and starts to see their work exhibited side-by-side with the most famous French, German and British graphic artists. “As the market grows, more importance is being given to the lesser-known artists as well,” Bartow says.

Propaganda posters, like the stamps Grigorian saved, were never intended as works of art, so few have survived the ravages of time and political change. “A lot of posters are printed on cheap paper because they were never meant to last; hence the condition is extremely poor,” Bartow explains.

“Condition is important but, quite honestly, Russian posters are still rare enough that oftentimes you find a piece in bad condition and it makes sense to buy it because you aren’t sure you are going to find it again in good condition,” Lowry adds.

Today the market for Soviet-era posters is much more accessible for private collectors. A good starting point is with the website of the International Vintage Poster Dealers Association, www.ivpda.com, where collectors can browse through available stock and get a sense of items on the market. Lowry advises potential collectors to make sure they have the financial wherewithal and the required knowledge before they jump into collecting these posters. “It is not a poor man’s game,” he emphasizes. “The average price is around $20,000 to $30,000, and it is an extremely sophisticated art form.”

“In the last couple of years, wealthy Japanese entrepreneurs and Russian private collectors have started to buy these posters, and now the market is hot,” Bartow says. While this has fueled price increases, Bartow insists the market has yet to peak. “I’d get into it now rather than wait, because in the next five years it will get even stronger.”

Lowry adds: “There’s a standard litany in the art world which says you should only buy something because you like it and not because you think it will increase in value. I tend to fly in the face of that. Right now this market is primed to continue to expand. If you buy the top-of-line material, you almost can’t go wrong.”

Lee Sherman is a freelance writer who is based in San Francisco.