Images conjured by Boris Zabirohin for Alexander Nikolayevich Afanasyev’s Russian Tales. These are so compelling that I could stare at them for hours. When I posted this yesterday I hadn’t been able to trace the book, but I’ve since found that copies can be acquired HERE.
I find the right-to-left bias of the illustrations interesting. As all of the compositions ‘face’ to the left I’ve been pondering on whether this is just the way the artist works, or the images favour R-L because they’re arranged throughout the book on the right hand side of the page-spreads facing the opposite texts. I wonder too whether I find these images to be so absorbing because of my own recent compulsion to be working in BLACK AND WHITE. However THIS long-ago drawing made when I thought that I might be an illustrator, is the closest I’ve come to Zabirohin’s dense pen and ink rendering.
Hello
I’m currently wanting to frame pen and ink illustrations from books ..yes books…these books are in varied condition …hence my desire to perhaps frame some of this art work… the books date from the 1920 to 1945 mostly in Ukrainian. Would like to know more about the artists. Can someone direct me to some sources
thanks
Hope
Hello Hope. I’m Clive and I run this website. I would suggest you try THIS site, which is the one I’ve been using myself.
Wonderful textures: I can see that the wolf picture would especially appeal because (well, because of the wolf, of course!) it actually has some of the structure of some of your paintings. It’s not just an animal but an animal-human encounter, and it has a sort of little still life at the base and then layers upward through ground, water, hills, mountains, and an interestingly-filled sky–just like some of your paintings.
Yes, I do feel as though there’s a common thread running between us. I immediately noticed devices and tendencies that made me know and recognise Boris’s work, and not because I’d seen it before, because I hadn’t. I love the silvery quality of these illustrations, and the way they draw attention to the most important aspects, while being also deeply rewarding once you start looking more closely.
Hello, Clive. Here you can find some information about this book in English and some more illustrations to this book:
http://www.vitanova.ru/en/catalog/series/frameset11_122.html
These illustrations are made in lithography technique. I think that this book is not available in England, but I can try to help you get it. The price of this book is about 120 dollars (postage is not included).
By the way the last illustration is from another book. It is Hoffmann’s Nutcracker, and also it is another artist — Mikhail Gavrichkov from Russia.
Ilya, thank you so much for the time and trouble you’ve taken to help me. I had felt that the ‘Nutcracker’ image was not quite of the same style, and have now removed it, though I shall investigate Gavrichkov more closely when I have some time.
I found an American bookshop that has a copy of the book, and I’m saving up to get a copy. It looks beautiful, bound in tooled leather.
Might you advise on another matter? I would like to make a post about another Russian illustrator, but I have his name only in your language:
Михаил Гавричков
Perhaps you can advise what this would be in English so that I can research him.
actually, they are one and the same: gavrichkov is the name you have in russian
No problem! Actually, there’s plenty of information about the artists who illustrated Vita Nova books at the publishers’ site.
Mikhail Alekseevich Gavrichkov was born in Leningrad in 1963. He graduated from the Leningrad Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture n.a. I.E. Repin, the department of the graphic arts in 1987. He is a member of the Russian Union of Artists. Mikhail participated in the world congresses of bookplates in the Czech Republic (1996), in Russia (1998) and in USA (1999). He was teaching drawing, composition, etching, and linocut in the Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia since 1996 till 2000. Gavrichkov became the Mariinsky Theatre Trustees Fund Fellow in 1995 and the President Fund Fellow in 1997.
Mikhail Gavrichkov is a painter, a graphic artist, an illustrator, an ex-librist and an inventive author of sculptures and assemblages who gives his preference to a complex etching technique. His engravings require arduous long-term work, they are full of significant details, each of which has its message. His favourite characters are circus performers, musicians, urban fringes and skid row dwellers. In the late 1980-s the artist turned to book illustration. Since then he has illustrated more than 30 books, among them “The Novels” by E.T.A. Hoffmann, “Myths of Ancient Greece”, “Plays” by E. Schwartz, “Tales of old times” by Kipling, “Peter Pan” by J. Barrie, “The Gold-Bug” by Edgar Allan Poe, “Stories of Sherlock Holmes” by Arthur Conan Doyle, Hans Christian Andersen’s “Fairytales”, “History of the Russian State”, “Icelandic sagas”. In his book graphics Mikhail Gavrichkov is a mystic and a visionary that by no means disagrees with the deliberate involution of his pen-pictures and etchings.
The artist participated in more than 120 exhibitions, both in Russia and abroad. 18 of them were one-man shows, including the exhibition in the Central Exhibition Hall “Manege” (St. Petersburg) in 2001. His works are owned by the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Russian National Library in St. Petersburg, the Cambridge University Library in Boston, USA, the Museum of Maps in France, the Museum of Erotic (Switzerland) and private collectors in Russia, UK, Germany, Holland, Italy and USA.
He illustrated 4 books for Vita Nova (all leather-bound limited editions) – Hoffmann’s fairy tales, his “Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr” and two books of Conan Doyle. The illustrations are pen and ink drawings. You can find some of them at the site. In case you want more and of better quality (and Zabirohin’s, too), I could send them to your e-mail.
I’ll be glad to answer your questions about Russian book illustrators and Vita Nova publishers.
Dear ilya. You are a fount of knowledge and I thank you for the incredibly detailed comment above. A week ago I hadn’t heard of either of these artists, but from what I’ve now seen and learned of their work they are clearly both ‘masters’ of book illustration. I’m very impressed.
May I ask, are you an artist yourself, or perhaps an art historian? I appreciate your offer of help, and I shall definitely take you up on it. Should you want to write to me in an e-mail, click on my name in the blogroll of this site. That will take you to my official website. There you’ll find a contact button that will put you directly in touch with me via an e-mail.
Again, thank you for your help. I’m most obliged to you.
Oh, how neat. I love them.
Bad timing! A friend from Stockholm just spent a couple of days at the annual book fair at Göteborg. He might well have been able to get a copy there. Still, I can ask if he would watch for a copy.
Oh Bev, thanks for even thinking of helping. I like a challenge, and this will certainly be a chase fuelled by my passion for the illustrator’s dark and glittering vision.
Ooh they are wonderful, I especially like the illustration of the Firebird (at least I think it’s the Firebird from my very limited knowledge of Russian Tales)
I’d say definitely the Firebird. Just looking at it I can almost hear Stravinsky’s music!
wow, wow, wow!!!! these are magical and fantastical!! especially the second and the last ones…. what a great find, clive; i hope you can get ahold of a book.
Zoe, if I do find a copy I shall photograph the illustrations and do a more comprehensive Artlog post. They’d certainly be worthy of closer inspection.
I look forward to it
The Russian name you are asking about is Michael Gavrichkov. Now I am curious, so I will go digging
Hi Clive, having looked at other illustrations by this artist I can see why you like them I came across this link
http://russianillustrations.blogspot.com/2010/06/boris-zabirokhin.html
which has some more illustrations from the same book I think – certainly the wolf is there. It has a space at the bottom of the page for comments so I wondered if you asked maybe the artist might get in touch with you as you got in touch with me and you might then get a copy that way? They are very detailed, how do you think they are created? monoprint or something like scraperboard ?
Good hunting!
We have mounted a spotlight towards Writing in the Dust by the way (not too close you understand) to give the colours a glow in the evening viewings – works well.
Jacqui
Hello Jacqui. I think they’re pen and ink drawings reproduced through photo-lithography. I see no evidence of ‘blocks’. Magnificent illustrations. I’m mad for them.
Thank you for lighting Christ Writes in the Dust to make it glow! (-;
Oo-er, Clive! It’s very you, isn’t it? Very up your street. Must say I like it very much and hope you manage to source the book. It could provide a great source of inspiration for your particular talent. Hey, Clive! It’s spring in Llanfairfechan today! Can you believe that? It’s mild and balmy, the little birds are singing their hearts out and I’m planning to visit Cwm Ystradlyn to see the famous building in your paintings!!!! love from Flo and Louis xxxxx
Enjoy the ruined slate mill Flo. It is the most magnificent site, and probably the location I’ve used with most frequency in my paintings.
Wow, these are fantastic! And I can see why you, of all people, would be partial to them. Thanks for sharing!
Glad you like ‘em Thom. They really ring all my bells! Love that wolf!
Clive, I love a challenge! I know there is a place in London that sells only russian books but that drew a blank. I did find the site of the publishers http://www.vitanova.ru and the book is listed for sale in russian under the family library:fairy hall section. My connection failed in trying to go to the shop but I found an e mail address : sale@asia-plus.ru Have a look at the site and see if it works any better for you. I tried the ISBN number in abebooks but it drew a blank so the publishers web site might be the only answer. I agree with your comments about the illustrations. They are very compelling. This little game of internet tag has given me 10 minutes of fun on a Saturday afternoon . I think I really must get out more…
Hello Lesley. Sorry that your comment didn’t come up straight away. WordPress got scared by the links contained in your message and set it aside for moderation. I’m hugely obliged to you for the trouble you’ve taken, and armed with the information you’ve kindly provided, I shall be hunting down a copy. Thank you so much.
UPDATE; I tracked the book down to a seller and a link has been added at the top of this post to point everyone there. Alas for me, it’s a luxurious, leather-bound limited edition, and as such is beyond my means. I’d hoped for a trade edition. Maybe that will come later.
Clive,
At least you’ve tracked it down even if it does seem unattainable at the moment. Proof, if proof were needed, that blog readers can turn their hand to anything and come up trumps . Now all we need to do is find it at a more accessible price!
I greatly appreciate your help Lesley. Thank you so much. It will have to wait for the present, but I feel comforted that it’s out there and I can maybe think about acquiring it at another time. I plan some more interesting ‘Russian Illustrator’ posts, so keep watching! (-;