Vsesoiuznaia Poligraficheskaia Vystavka. Putevoditel'. (All-Union Printing Trades Exhibition: Guidebook).

Moscow.: Komitet Poligraficheskoi Vystavki., 1927.. Original letterpress printed boards with a design in red, grey and black by El Lissitzky, with rear folding printed flap as issued.. 8vo. (175 x 110 mm).. Illustrated throughout with monochrome photographs, some advertisements to the rear are printed in colour. [PROVENANCE: The copy of Georgii Echeistov and Lidia Zholtkevich with their ownership signatures to front cover and flap, pink / brown paper 'E' to rear cover and additional annotation (see below) within]. A superb copy, with an important association, of this iconic work of typography / book design: the handbook for The Union Printing and Graphic Arts Exhibition held in Moscow in 1927.From the edition limited to 5,000 copies. The Union Printing and Graphic Arts Exhibition opened in Moscow on September 15th, 1927. Covering all aspects of print (typography, book design, engineering and new colour printing processes) and showcasing the work of 58 artist / designers, this extraordinary guidebook to the exhibition is itself a perfect exemplar of the event in its own right.The guidebook is divided into seven parts, with El Lissitzy's masterful design comprising six tabbed sections using a differently coloured title-page and corresponding monochrome photograph for easy reference. The sections are, accordingly, 'Department of the History of Writing and Printing' (blue), 'Department of Product Graphic Design' (purple), 'Department of Printing Production' (red), 'Department of Publishing' (orange), 'Department of Engineering and Technical' (yellow) and the 'Department of Educational Printing' (green).Solomon Telingater, responsible for some of the inner letterpress typography, was a founding member of the October group, a collective of Constructivist artists that formed in 1928 - Gustav Klutsis, Alexander Rodchenko and El Lissitsky were all members.This copy features the ownership signatures of Georgii Echeistov (1897 - 1946) and Lidia Zholtkevich (1900 - 1989) to the front cover and the additional printed flap; occasional contemporary annotations / underlinings within the body of the catalogue's second section ('Department of Product Graphic Design') and many entries marked - very much in keeping with the style of the catalogue itself - with thin arrows of pink / brown or red paper pasted to the relevant page / entry. Chromolithograph's for Zholtkevich 's children's book 'The Story of an Orange' are among the contributions marked by the artist herself. Other artist's to be included in the section for children's books include Lebedev, Vatagin, Krimmer, Surovov, Pravosudovich, and others.'Other vehicles for disseminating Societ industrial progress were the publications -- catalogues for trade fairs, books, manifestoes, and reports -- devoted to industrial and cultural production in the USSR. Despite a content that was far from seductive, these volumes were a remarkable graphic invention, sometimes imaginatively inspired by that very content, and designed for popular appeal. Lissitzky's and Telingater's catalogue for the All Union Printing Trades Exhibition of 1927, with its full-page horizontal tab index, is one of the more well-known examples of such visual and practical ingenuity.' (Rowell and Wye).Although printed and issued in a relatively large edition, copies of the book and especially copies in a condition such as this, are very scarce on the market and in institutions: we locate copies at the British Library in the UK, the Getty, Northwestern and the Art Institute of Chicago in the US and Waseda in Japan only.Further details of the annotations and highlighting are available on request.[Rowell & Wye 705].