I just received a belated Christmas present: As I See: The Fantastic World of Boris Artzybasheff
"The Last Fly" from Verotchka's Tales, 1922
Artzybasheff was born in Kharkiv in 1899. He claimed later that he fought with the Ukraine White Army as a machine-gunner and that might be true. At any rate, in 1919, he wound up working in New York for a print company. Soon he began illustrating books and, in 1928, Gay-Neck: The Story of A Pigeon won the Newbery Award.
"The Goose and the Golden Eggs",Aesop's Fables, 1933
After 1940, Artzybasheff ceased book illustration and concentrated on commercial work: posters, advertisements, and 200 or so covers for Time magazine.
Anthropomorphized chassis, circa 1951
Artzybasheff’s anthropomorphized machines have attracted a great deal of interest over the years but his portraits, satiric and political drawings are well worth study. Boris Artzybasheff died 1964.
"Stalin", painting for Time Man of the Year 1942 (printed January, 1943)
Mechanix Illustrated article 1952
"Plowman, plowman, what of thy hands?" Diablerie, circa 1949
"We are getting to the bottom of it", Neurotica, circa 1952
Shell oil ad, 1953
For more Artzybasheff:
B/W book illustration: wiki
Machines: a series of posts by lord_k at dieselpunks.org: 1, 2, 3, 4
Time covers: via Google, Dieselpunks album
War: themafucage gallery
Neurotica: complete folio
American Art Archives
You’re right, his images are terrific. So thank you, I’d never heard of him before. But what is the background to the spider and the fly picture? The spider looks Jewish, and in the 1920s, it would be sad, but not surprising, if his work was anti-Semitic. Can you tell me any more?
You can read the story for yourself: complete Verotchka’s Tales. It isn’t anti-semitic, nor, I think, is the drawing — more satanic or devilish (the spider tries to tempt the fly into his web), but that brings up Trachtenberg’s The Devil and the Jews and the idea that the one visual concept fed the other.
What a fascinating artist. i love the Stalin portrait
Me too.