RYBAKIN, Alexander. Gorod (City): poetry / Сover, illustrations, type, and vignettes by N. Goncharova. — Paris, [s.l.], 1920.
Octavo (252 x 163 mm) [4], 54 and 4 ll. facsimile manuscript. All 52 lithographic illustrations after Goncharova, 9 of which are fullpage; pages uncut, unbound and of different sizes. One of 325 copies.
The collection of poems The City is the only poetry book by the scholar and journalist Alexander Rubakin (1889-1979). The present collection consists of poems dedicated to Rubakin’s wife, deceased in 1918. In the poems, the narrator expresses longing and grief over his loss as he documents his experience of Paris, predominantly dismal, dirty and hostile, with piercing electric lights. In some moments, Paris with its crowded factories, full of people, desperate in their misery, transforms in Petrograd with similar images, caught by the flames of the Revolution.
This is the first edition in France, illustrated by Goncharova as the only artist throughout. She prepared a rich series of lithographs for this only edition of Rybakin’s poetry. Most likely, it was also her who manually wrote and set out all the poems in Russian and French, together with the titles and covers before their facsimile reproduction. Nine of her illustrations are narrative strips; the text also contains many headpieces, vignettes, and ornaments.
- L’art décoratif théâtral moderne
- Samum
- Motdinamo
- Transparent Shadows and Forms
- Twelve. Scythians.
- Gorod (City)
- Conte de Tsar Saltan
- The Russian Ballet in Western Europe 1909-1920
- Tale of Prince Igor
- L’Annonciation: Roman
- Le thé du capitaine Sogoub
- Les Montparnos
- Les Ballets Russes de Serge de Diaghilew
- Skazki (Fairytales)