Russia Books

In Stradivari’s Genius, Toby Faber charted the fascinating course of some of the world’s most prized musical instruments. Now, in this enthralling new book, he tells the story of objects that are, to many, the pinnacle of the jeweler’s art: the Fabergé imperial eggs. The Easter presents that Russia’s last ...more

This final volume of previously unpublished drawings and photographs completes the Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia trilogy. Danzig Baldaev's unparallelled ethnographic achievement, documenting more than 3,000 tattoo drawings, was made during a lifetime working as a prison guard. His recording of this esoteric world was reported to the KGB, who unexpectedly ...more

Russian Textiles showcases the gorgeous printed-cotton textiles created and manufactured in Russia and exported to Central Asia from approximately 1860 to 1960. More than 175 spectacular patterns spanning a variety of periods and styles, from Art Nouveau florals to Soviet-era agitprop, are featured. The people in these Central Asian countries—including ...more

This massive book of Soviet propaganda posters, many rare and never before published, is at once a revealing historical document and a sublime example of graphic art at its best. Dating from 1917 to the beginning of the Cold War, the posters in this book feature the work of such ...more

Lavishly illustrated, Moscow & St. Petersburg 1900–1920 is the quintessential guide to Russia’s vibrant and influential Silver Age. In this elegantly written narrative survey, John E. Bowlt sheds new light on Russia’s Silver Age, the period of artistic renaissance that flourished as Imperial Russia’s power waned. Much of the creative ...more

This first comprehensive survey of Ilya Repin's work to be overseen by a Western art historian features a wealth of previously unseen paintings, eye-catching and dramatic works that bring to life Russian society in the last years of the tsars. Repin, who lived from 1844 to 1930, was the finest ...more

This book is a completely revised and updated edition of Soviet Impressionism, published in 2001 and quickly sold out. Vern Swanson has included a mass of new information as well as 140 additional colour plates. Soviet Art of the 1930s to the 1980s is now considered the twenieth century's major ...more

"The Magic Carpet" by Russian-born Victor Vasnetsov depicts a man placidly hovering on an oriental rug, flanked by three owls, above an eerie, moonlit landscape. Painted in 1880, it evidences the influence that Russian fairytales (in which magic carpets figure heavily) had on Russian painters and illustrators of the time. ...more

Danzig Baldaev's father was an academic, an ethnologist who found himself imprisoned under Soviet rule as an enemy of the people. In fact much of Baldaev's family moved through the Soviet prison system, while he became a guard. At his father's suggestion, he used his access to document and study ...more

The rich tradition of French painting was an important influence on Russian art from the mid-nineteenth century to the 1920s, a period that saw the rise of many of the most important movements in modern art. A magnificent visual record of an unprecedented event, this book, the catalogue of an ...more