"A Yankee in Petrograd" Vol. 8 Genius Siska by Jim Dollar (Marietta Saginyan)
Aleksandr Rodchenko
Russian, 1891–1956
1924
A 1924 gravure book cover by Aleksandr Rodchenko that combines photographic cutouts, geometric shapes, and blocky Cyrillic type to promote a detective novel while testing a modern, industrial visual language.
Striking for its jagged, arrow-driven layout and limited brown-and-black palette, the cover assembles a pipe‑smoking man pointing, a formally dressed stranger, a suspended animal and objects like a bottle into a cinematic, collage‑like scene.
A key example of Constructivist graphic design, this cover helped make photomontage and radical typography standard tools for mass publishing and visual communication in the early Soviet era.
Medium
Gravure
Dimensions
7 x 5" (17.9 x 12.7 cm)
Classification
Department
Credit
Kenneth Walker Fund
Accession
407.1991.8
Palette
Exhibitions
