Lot 152B email save

ANNENKOV RUSSIAN ART CHUKOVSKAYA BOOK DRAWING

ANNENKOV, Iurii Pavlovich [Georges Annenkoff] (1889-1974). Group of preliminary illustrations for unpublished book.

Ink on paper (255 x 200 mm). An unpublished title page for Lidiya Chukovskaya, Povest o skorbnoi materi [The Story about a Mother's Sorrow] (Paris: "Pyat Kontinentov," 1965). [With:] Illustration of burning manuscript. Ink on paper (190 x 155 mm). Framed. [And:] Illustration of bust of Stalin scowling at shelf of V.I. Lenin's books. Ink on paper (160 x 205 mm). Matted and framed. [And:] Four leaves of maquettes (front and reverse) for the above illustrations. Pencil on paper (265 x 210 mm). Provenance: sale Sotheby's London 22 May 2002; lot 128. Chukovskaya's deeply personal writings reflect the human cost of Soviet totalitarianism, and she devoted much of her career to defending dissidents such as Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov. She was the daughter of the celebrated children's writer Korney Chukovsky, wife of the scientist Matvei Bronstein, and close associate and chronicler of the poet Anna Akhmatova.