Description

ORIGINAL FRENCH EDITION from Alexander Blok's poemThe Twelve"translated by Serge Romoff.
ONE OF 500 COPIES ON ARCHES LAID PAPER, (numbering crossed out) after 10 on China paper.
Illustrated with 7 photographic reproductions of drawings by Michel Larionov, printed on coated paper and laminated.

In Paris, the painter Michel Larionov met Jacques Povolozky, a publisher whose wife ran the art gallery La Cible; the two Russian immigrants soon set about a joint project to distribute the "Twelve"They successively published a French edition (April 1920), a Russian edition with a poem (June 1920) and an English edition (autumn 1920). The first two were published under the name La Cible.

A leader of Russian symbolism, Alexander Blok, only a few months after the October Revolution, baffled his readership with "The Twelve"It is the epic tale of twelve Red Guards who are likened to apostles. While some criticised the fragmented structure of the text and the vulgarity of the style, where slang and onomatopoeia rubbed shoulders, others accused Blok of betraying his ideals in the service of the revolution; the Bolsheviks, for their part, condemned his excessive mysticism.

Few note the poem's ambivalence and irony.