BORIS ARTZYBASHEFF: THE WAR YEARS

Peter Blume [exhibition and catalog]

9 x 9 exhibition catalog with 16 pages and 10 black and white illustrations. Catalog of 40 items. Introduction by August L. Freundlich. This exhibition focuses on the work Artzybasheff did during World War II. Included are twenty-two gouache portrait paintings that were used by Time magazine as cover images and thirteen of his anthropomorphic paintings published in Life and other publications. Artzybasheff's Time covers are a veritable who's who of the key political and military figures of the war including Truman, Hitler, and Stalin. During this period he also published a unique series of paintings that transformed machines of war into humanized objects. Artzybasheff represented a variety of plans, ships, and artillery in this intriguing manner.

"I am thrilled by machinery's force, precision and willingness to work at any task, no matter how arduous or monotonous it may be. I would rather watch a thousand ton dredge dig a canal than see it done by a thousand spent slaves lashed into submission... I like machines." - Boris Artzybasheff

Boris Artzybasheff was born in Russia in 1899, the son of a successful author. During the Revolution he emigrated to America and settled in New York City. His early work included designing women's clothing, painting ornaments, lettering in an engraver's shop and drawing caricatures for the New York World magazine. Eventually he received several commissions to paint murals for local restaurants, which led to his designing stage sets for Michael Fokine's Russian Ballet. In the late 1930's his illustrations began to appear in Life and Fortune magazines and in 1941 he produced his first cover for Time magazine. Over the next twenty years Artzybasheff would create more than two hundred cover illustrations for Time.

A sample spread from this volume can be viewed here.

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