Iskusstvo v massy: zhurnal Assotsiatsii khudozhnikov revolutsii [Art for the Masses: organ of the Russian Association of Revolutionary Artists]. Later title: Za proletarskoe iskusstvo [For a proletarian art]. Complete run, altogether 42 issues in 33 fascicules by Assotsiatsiia khudozhnikov revoliutsii [Association of Artists of the Revolution]

Moscow: AKhR, 1929-1932. Quartos (29.5 × 17.5 cm). Original decorative and pictorial wrappers; 16-64 pp. per issue. Numerous illustrations in the text and on plates, including several full-page color plates as well as folding plates. A few issues with light soil and wear to spine; overall a very good set in the original wrappers. A complete run, in the original wrappers, of the monumental journal of the Association of Artists of the Revolution (ARA), one of the most important resources on the development of Soviet avant-garde art during the late 1920s and early 1930s, before the official turn toward a stricter socialist realist canon around 1934. Forty-two issues were published from April 1929 to May 1932, under two different titles: in 1931, after the first twenty issues, the title became Za proletarskoe iskusstvo ("For a proletarian art"). The front wrapper of the first issue reproduces the declaration of the group, which calls for implementing readily understandable creative forms throughout all aspects of life, including painting and graphic prints, but also worker's clubs, graphic design, architecture and interior decoration, forms of recreation and mass festivities. Although it was hostile to the bourgeois tradition as well as abstraction, many of the designs and works discussed and pictured are among the most innovative avant-garde works of the period, including constructivist tendencies. Among the groups whose work was discussed are October (Oktiabr'), OST, and IZORAM. Many issues contains overviews of exhibitions held throughout the Soviet Union, as well as more detailed reviews. A number of contributions deal with children's art education and autodidactism. The journal also sought to link Soviet art with its counterparts in leftist art circles abroad. Foreign proletarian art is represented by George Grosz, Kaethe Kollwitz, Heinrich Zille and others. Among Soviet artists whose work is featured are E. Katsman, A. Nemov, Iu. Shchukin, A. Magidson, S. Boim, M. Lebedeva, P. Konchalovskii, M. Cheremnykh, D. Shterenberg, and countless others. The early wrappers were designed by Boris Titov and A. Nemov, and the editor was A. A. Antonov. After an initially low print run of only 2,000 copies, the circulation soon reached 10,000. In 1932, the journal was forcibly shuttered and numerous of its contributors were later repressed during the Stalin Terror of the late 1930s. A very valuable resource, extremely scarce complete in both parts and with all original wrappers. As of November 2019, KVK and OCLC only show two complete runs.