My first introduction to Soviet propaganda art and design was at university via one of my tutors. David Crowley is a cultural historian of Eastern Europe under communist rule and has published a number of books on and around the subject. Having finished watching (the absolutely brilliant) Chernobyl this week, I was thinking about the ideology, values and beliefs of communism.

Pro-communist agitprop posters were created and distributed on a large scale and there were a number of artists designing them from the 1920s onwards; Ruben Suryaninov (or Sur’yaninov) was one. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find much information about him – just the occasional paragraph in books. Suryaninov (b. 1930) attended the Academy of Riga and is the son of prominent Soviet artist, Vasily Sur’yaninov. Originally a film poster artist, Suryaninov shifted to designing political posters in the mid-1930s.

Subject matter encompassed themes such as productivity, health (or sanitation), safety, sport, farming & agriculture, war, national security and peace.

On the process of designing anti-smoking posters, Ruben Suryaninov observed:

…a scientific council would determine the topics and themes, an artistic director (redaktor) would assign the topic to a particular artist whose style was considered a good match… The aim was to produce a poster that would convey the message in a clear, correct manner.

Around 10 examples of his designs are held in archives at The University of Birmingham. There’s an online gallery of over 80 of his posters at Digital Soviet Art. Surprisingly, original Suryaninovposters come up for sale cheaply on eBay – sleepers, if you ask me!

Image credits:

Alembicrare books | Redbird Auction | Soviet Posters | Soviet Propaganda