Tretyakov, S.

[RODCHENKO] Den Shi-Khua: Bio-interv’iu [i.e. Tan Shih-hua: A Bio-Interview]

Moscow: Molodaia gvardiia, 1930.

Item #6701

392 pp.: ill. 21,5x15 cm. In original illustrated wrappers. Good. Tears and small losses of the spine, soiling, some pages detached from block, tears and small fragments of margins lost occasionally, ink note on p. 37.

Second edition. One of 7500 copies. Very rare.

Design was created by Alexander Rodchenko, using mostly combinations of lines as well as geometrically cut photographs showing local day-to-day life. The design resembles his experimental ‘liniizm’ (i.e. linearism), occurred in 1919-1920, and thus the book is the point where his constructivist and non-objective conceptions met.

This book by futurist poet Sergei Tretyakov (1892-1937) described unrests in Chinese society of the 1920s, as close as possible, and contrasted to official press. It combined an interview with student Tan Shih-hua, that was conducted by Tretyakov in Peking University, and author’s impressions of country. Actually, the interview embraced more than twenty-six years of a man’s life so it was considered the biographical interview.

Worldcat shows copies of 2nd ed. in LoC, Columbia and Stanford University, Getty Institute and Harvard College.

Price: $2,500.00