Lot 84A email save

KHARMS, Daniil Ivanovich [Daniil Ivanovich Iuvache

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Moscow and Leningrad: GIZ, 1929. 28 pp., small 8vo (175 x 130 mm). Illustrated by E. Krimmer. Original decorated wrappers. Condition: wrappers lightly discolored. rare children's book by the doomed avant-garde writer. When an old woman goes in search for ink to write a letter to her son, she finds the new way of life in the modern city strange to her old pre-revolutionary way of thinking. Kharms was one of the great tragic figures in modern Russian literature. In 1928 he helped found OBERIU (acronym for Obedinenie realnogo iskusstva) or An Association of Real Art. When their absurdist tricks ran afoul of the Soviet authorities, Kharms and his colleasgues found sanctury in children's books. But Kharms was arrested in 1931 and sent into exile for being a member of "a group of anti-Soviet children's writers." He was released not long after and resumed his career in juvenile literature. He was again arrested in 1941 and died in the psychiatric ward at Leningrad Prison No. 1 the next year. Krimmer was one of the most inventive of Russian avant-garde picture book artists and perfectly suited to illustrate Kharms' absurd story.

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