ALTMAN N.I. (1890-1970) ‘V.I. Lenin’: litografii [V.I. Lenin: Lithographs]. 4 sheets. Moscow, 1920s

Mounted. 3 sheets: 42.5 x 34.5 cm (mount), 22 x 18.5 cm (sheet); 1 sheet: 42.5 x 34.5 cm (mount), 18.5 x 22 cm (sheet). Contemporary explanatory label at the foot of the mount. In good condition. Minor soiling, small tears to the mounts. The drawings, portrait sketches of Lenin from various angles, were included in the publication: Lenin / drawings and cover by Natan Altman. Petrograd: Fine Arts Department of the People’s Commissariat for Education, 1921. In the early 1920s the Fine Arts Board of the People’s Commissariat for Education asked Natan Altman to create a portrait of V.I. Lenin. Altman gathered material for a painted portrait and twice saw Lenin at rallies on the Field of Mars in 1917 and 1918. Lenin famously disliked sitting for portraits and never agreed to pose. Altman was helped by Lunacharsky, at whose request Lenin allowed him to work in his Kremlin study in the spring of 1920. The artist worked for six weeks, by his own count some 250 hours in all. The painted portrait was created on the basis of these drawings from life.