Back in the USSR: John Heartfield, Gustavs Klucis, and the Medium of Soviet Propaganda

Abstract

For kindly facilitating my research for this essay, I thank Michael Kresja and Silvia Diekmann at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin, Irena Bužinska and Iveta Derkusova at the Latvijas Nacionālais mākslas muzejs in Riga, Frank Van Lamoen and Guert Imanse at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, and the reading-room staffs of the Getty Research Institute, the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (RGALI), the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), and the Russian State Archive of Social and Political History (RGASPI). My thanks also to audience members at the Getty Research Institute, Harvard University, and the Institute of Fine Arts, who responded to an earlier version of the text presented in 2006. Special thanks are due to Andrés Mario Zervigón for his invaluable reading of the penultimate draft and to Dan Hackbarth for crucial research assistance at the eleventh hour. Unless otherwise noted, translations are mine.