GUSTAV KLUTSIS (1895-1938) Three unique photomontages
Lot 809
6 0007 000
(1) Politburo or Secretariat
Unique collage maquette for a photograph or poster
(not executed)
Stamp, signed (lower right),
Counter-signed by artist’s son on reverse
Gelatin silver print
9 x 12.7 cm (irregular shape)
executed circa 1935
Exhibited:
Essen, Germany, Glaube Hoffnung Anpassing,
Museum Folkwang, 1995, p. 79 (illustrated).*
Valencia, Spain, Utopia, ilusion y adaptation,
Valencia International Museum of Art, 1996, p. 103
(illustrated).
(2) ‘The Party with the Backing of the Masses’
Unique collage maquette for a photograph or poster
(final version of the montage. unexecuted)
Stamp signed and dated ‘1933’ (lower right)
Counter-signed by artist’s son on reverse
Gelatin silver print
17.8 x 12.7 cm
executed in 1933
Exhibited:
Essen, Germany, Glaube Hoffnung Anpassing,
Museum Folkwang, 1995, p. 79 (illustrated).
Valencia, Spain, Utopia, ilusion y adaptation,
Valencia International Museum of Art, 1996, p. 103
(illustrated).
(3) Politburo or Secretariat (‘Stalin towers over the assembly in the photo as he did in life.’)
Unique altered photograph (study for photograph or poster, not executed)
Counter-signed by artist’s son on reverse
Gelatin silver print
10 x 15 cm
executed circa 1935
Provenance:
Son of the artist
Purchased from the above by Jack Banning, Paris, late 1970s
Ubu gallery, New York, ca 1980
Ida Genstein estate
*Published in error as “1938” in catalogs, according to Professor Typitsyn who has verified the authenticity of the works
in conversation.
Stalin is the largest figure, as he is the most important character in the photograph.
In the front row: Anastas Mikoian, Mikhail Kalinin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, Kliment Voroshilov, and Sergo
Ordzhonikidze. In the back row: Stanislav Kosior, Vlas Chubar, Mikhail Tomsky, Pavel Postyshev, Grigori Petrovskii,
Andrei Zhdanov, Robert Eikhe, and Nikolai Yezhov.
The cut-out figure is Jānis Rudzutaks, a Bolshevik revolutionary and Soviet politician who in 1937 was expelled from the
Central Committee. After torture, confession of being a spy, and then a retraction of this confession, Rudzutaks was given
death penalty.
Figures who fell from grace under Stalin were deleted from visual records.