"A Yankee in Petrograd" Vol. 2 Secret Sign by Jim Dollar (Marietta Saginyan)
Aleksandr Rodchenko
Russian, 1891–1956
1924
This 1924 gravure book-cover design by Aleksandr Rodchenko for the Soviet edition of Jim Dollar’s thriller stages a dramatic, modern tableau—using bold typography and geometric photomontage to sell mystery and urgency to a mass readership.
You’re hit first by the jagged green-and-black geometry that forms an arrowlike cube, inside which a shadowed man leans toward a crouched, terrified woman, all anchored by blocky Cyrillic lettering that slices the picture into dynamic diagonals.
The cover marks Rodchenko’s shift from easel art to applied design, showing how Constructivist photomontage and industrial typography were adapted to the new mass media of Soviet publishing and popular visual culture.
Medium
Gravure
Dimensions
7 x 5" (17.9 x 12.7 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Kenneth Walker Fund
Accession
407.1991.2
Palette
Exhibitions
