"Noa Noa: Voyage to Tahiti", by Paul Gauguin / "Life and Work of Paul Gauguin", by Yakov Tugendhold – Moscow, 1918 ...

"Noa Noa: Voyage to Tahiti", by Paul Gauguin / "Life and Work of Paul Gauguin", by Yakov Tugendhold – Moscow, 1918 – Cover Designed by Vera Mukhina, Title Page Illustration by El Lissitzky

Two works in one volume: Поль Гогенъ: "ноа-ноа" – Путешествіе на Таити [Paul Gauguin: "Noa-Noa" – Journey to Tahiti] / Жизнь и творчество Поля Гогена [Life and Work of Paul Gauguin]. Moscow: Издательское т-во Д.Я.Маковский и Сын, 1918. Russian. 

The first work is a short monograph on the life and work of Paul Gauguin by the Jewish-Soviet art critic Jacob Tugendhold. The second is a Russian adaptation of Gauguin's travelogue, written during his famous painting trip to Tahiti.

The volume is accompanied by many illustrations and reproductions of Gauguin's most famous paintings, two of which in color.

168, [3] pages + [2] plates (color reproductions). Approx. 31 cm. Stains. Minor traces of past dampness to front endpaper. Minor marginal tears to some leaves. Stamp and inscriptions inside rear cover. Front binding board detached, rear board partly detached. Minor tears to spine, affecting text.

MoMA 185.

El (Eliezer Lazar Markovich) Lissitzky (Лазарь Маркович "Эль" Лисицкий; 1890-1941), Jewish-Russian artist, designer, photographer, teacher, typographer and architect, one of the most prominent and important members of the Russian avant-garde.

Lissitzky, an architect by training, contributed much, together with his teacher and friend Kazimir Malevich, to the conceptualization and development of the Suprematism movement – the abstract art focused on geometric forms. He also designed numerous books and journals, exhibitions, and propaganda posters for the communist regime in Russia and influenced the Bauhaus and Constructivist movements in Europe. In his early days, Lissitzky showed much interest in the Jewish culture and many of his works integrated Jewish motifs (during the years 1915-1916, he took part in the ethnographic expedition headed by S. An-sky to various Jewish settlements). Wanting to promote Jewish culture in Russia after the revolution, he became engaged in designing and illustrating Yiddish children's books, creating several children's books which are considered pioneering masterpieces due to their graphics and typography. However, several years later, he abandoned the Jewish motifs in favor of developing a more abstract and universal artistic language.

In 1921, Lissitzky moved to Germany, where he served as the Russian cultural ambassador, engaged in forming connections between Russian and German artists and continued to design books and journals; there he also created some of his most well-known works in the field of book design, including the issues of the journal "Veshch/Gegenstand/Objet", which he founded together with the writer Ilya Ehrenburh and a volume of poetry by Vladimir Mayakovsky.

Lissitzky, who perceived books as immortal artifacts, "monuments of the future" by his definition, used the medium as a tool for spreading the messages of avant-garde and his artistic perception, as indicated by the variety of books in whose design, production or illustration he took part – beginning with children's books and books of poetry and ending with catalogs, guidebooks and research books.

Lissitzky died in Moscow at the age of 51. In his final years, his artistic work was dedicated mainly to soviet propaganda; yet it seems that the same worldview accompanied his works throughout his life – the belief in goal-oriented creation (Zielbewußte Schaffen, the German term he coined) and the power of art to influence and bring about change.