Artwork by Georgii and Vladimir Stenberg.
I have no clue what film this was designed to publicize, I just know it's evidently VERY dramatic and dark and superb poster design. I believe the language might be Russian. (?) I depend on a reader to let me know the title of the film so I can post it. I also wish I knew who did the fantastic artwork.
Now thanks to Prashant and his keen research eye, we know who designed and did the artwork for this amazing Russian poster. The Stenberg Brothers were a 'pair of Russian Constructivist poster designers from the 1920's.' Good to know.
Good also to know that the name of the film appears to be SONG OF THE TUNDRA - thanks for this info to richmcd who also informs us that the poster is for sale online.
My Russian is minimal, but it seems to be a film called PESN TUNDRY (The Tundra's Song? But that's a guess) from 1926
ReplyDeleteThere's an imdb link for it, but no info.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0265518/
It looks pretty creepy! I doubt it's a cheerful romance...
I like the very simple treatment of the type, with that lower righthand block. It reminds me a little of the work of Shepard Fairey.
ReplyDeleteWell, if it's a guess, Rich, I won't post it. I'm surprised some Russian speaking reader hasn't piped up with the actual answer. :)
ReplyDeleteIt looks very noirish and bleak all right.
I'm not familiar with Fairey's work, Mark but I'll look around for it online.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your design assessment. I love the use of color too.
Fairey is best known for the blue/red Obama poster seen during the 2008 election. He also did the ironic "Obey" poster. A few weks ago, he was a guest on "The Simpsons," so he's really made his mark in pop culture now.
ReplyDelete/Don't have a clue about your poster, but I like it.
Yvette, I don't know Russian but I know how to type plausible key words in Google to find the answer to perplexing queries. It's not the same as reading Russian, you know, but this is what I came up with — your poster is attributed to Georgii and Vladimir Stenberg, aka The Stenberg Brothers, who are "a pair of Russian Constructivist poster designers from the 1920s, were largely forgotten until a 1997 MoMA exhibit restored their adventurous avant-garde legacy." Here's the link to this amazing site, a discovery no less — http://meansheets.com/category/movie-poster-collectorsdealers/page/2/
ReplyDeleteAnd my keywords — "russian film poster face." This was fun!
By and by, did you check out the Google Art Project? What did you think of it? They had it on their main page for a while.
Interesting. It's well worth following the link from the meansheets site to the gallery which ran the exhibition. They have a whole collection of awesome Soviet movie posters!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.tonyshafrazigallery.com/index.php?mode=current&object_id=206&view=images
The gallery translates the film as "Wind from the Tundra", but there aren't many hits for that if you search on Google.
"Song of the Tundra" brings up a lot more, including lists to a lot of sites selling the poster.
Interestingly, almost all of those sites have the poster mis-attributed to Theophile Steinlen, the Swiss artist responsible for the famous Chat Noir cabaret poster. I guess they didn't bother to do any research!
Deb, thanks for the info! Of course I know that fabulous poster. So I guess I do know Fairey's work. :)
ReplyDeleteOh thanks for the info, Prashant. I'm usually leery about going too deep into a search because sometimes it brings up strangeness.
ReplyDeleteI've been planning to put aside some time to check out the Google Art Project, just haven't been able to do it yet. But I will. Definitely.
Thanks for the prompt. Where does the time go?
Thanks to you too, Rich, for all the good info. I will definitely be taking a look at the gallery link.
ReplyDeleteYvette, this is embarrassing but I appreciate the mention and the link. Thanks ever so much.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry if I embarrassed you with my lavish praise, Prashant. It's just my enthusiastic way. :)
ReplyDelete