Winnipeg, Canada

I’m obviously not the only one who enjoys Russian posters… and though I’m drawn to the stark pictorial modernism many of these works exemplified, I also relate to them on a historical level (my father was born in Russia in 1920 amidst the turmoil of the Bolshevik revolution). El Lissitzky is one of my favorite Constructivists (I posted about a poster of his in my collection for which I found some interesting background last month). See more Soviet-era and Russian posters here, and here.

Images: ‘Help!’ by was designed by Dmitri Stakhievich Moor (aka Orlov, 1883-1946) during the drought and famine of 1921 (this dramatic poster has graced our washroom at Circle for nearly two decades); ‘Freed Woman! Build Socialism!’ was designed in 1926 by Adolf Strakhov (1896-1979).