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SOVIET TEXTILE DESIGNS. image 1
SOVIET TEXTILE DESIGNS. image 2
Lot 3198

5 December 2012, 10:00 EST
New York

US$30,000 - US$40,000

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SOVIET TEXTILE DESIGNS.

Important collection of 52 textile samples attractively mounted on fourteen large sheets (510 x 405 mm) of thick paper within in a new black labeled portfolio.

RARE ORIGINAL SWATCHES OF SOVIET FABRICS. In destroying the old regime, the Bolsheviks were determined to rebuild the world from the bottom up-even unto the shirt on one's back. Consequently, avant-garde artists were dedicated to designing every aspect of modern life according to Party line. Every industry in the Soviet Union, including textile manufacturing, had to adopt the ideology and symbols of Marxism. The Constructivists were particularly active in designing the new fabrics. Varvara Kuligina ran the Textiles Department of VKhUTEN; and Lyubov Popova was head of the design studio at the first State Textile Print Factory in Moscow. Varvara Stepanova also designed fabrics for the Moscow and Ivanovo plants. The new designers replaced the old floral patterns with the hammer and sickle. They also added workers and freight trains, peasants and produce, sailboats and factories, advanced machinery, even electric lights to their flat abstract and highly stylized patterns. One must look very closely to find exactly what is hidden in these brightly colored, pulsating designs.

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