Object description:
In the 1990s the Israel Museum received a unique collection of ROSTA Window posters, assembled by Merrill C. Berman, an expert in early modern graphic art. This holding represents the largest museum collection of such works outside Russia. The posters were produced by the Russian Telegraphic Agency (ROSTA) from 1919; starting in early 1921, when the Agency changed names, they were marked with the initials "GPP." The first ROSTA center was in Moscow and its main artists were Vladimir Mayakovsky, Mikhail Cheremnykh, and Ivan Maliutin. The posters' visual images and rhyming text, written for the most part by Mayakovsky, offer a vivid reflection of life and events as they unfolded during the formative years of Lenin-ruled Soviet Russia.
Originally displayed in empty shop windows, the series of posters, in comic-strip format, became increasingly significant as a propaganda tool intended to rally the populace and transform it into a politically sound, obedient entity. The teams of artists and writers that produced them were inspired by the traditional vernacular of political cartoons and by the lubok woodcut technique of Russian folk art. They combined text and illustrations to comment on social and political issues of the day, frequently using satire to portray the enemies of the state as grotesque and unsavory. In the first poster, the iconic image of the exploitative capitalist is represented by the black-suited man sitting on a pile of flour sacks.
