Kolkhoznitsy, borites’ za vysokiye urozhai! Zhenshchini v kolkhozakh - bol’shaya sila [Kolkhoz Women, Fight for the High Crop Yields! Kolkhoz Women Are a Major Force], a poster by Nina Vatolina (1915-2002). Published by Iskusstvo, Moscow-Leningrad, 1953, 82.5 x 57 cm.

In his speech at the First Congress of Kolkhoz Shock Workers, Stalin proclaimed: “Women on the collective farms are a great force. To keep this force down would be a crime.” This pronouncement became a perennial topic of Soviet visual propaganda for the next twenty years. Vatolina’s poster was produced in 1953; back in February 2012, we auctioned a Nikolai Dolgorukov’s poster with a very similar title dating back to 1933!

Vatolina, the creater of the iconic Ne Boltai [Don’t Tattle] (1941), was a graduate of the OGIZ Technical Arts School (class of 1936) and of the Surikov Arts Institute (class of 1942). Deni considered her one of his most talented students, and Vatolina, indeed, went to become the leading female Soviet poster artist of the 1940s and 1950s.

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