Moscow Large Edition Prints of the Mid-1950s to the Early 1960s as an Implementation of the ‘Art into Everyday Life’ Concept

In the late 1950s the Soviet Union experienced a massive increase in housing construction and consumption, followed by discussions about everyday aesthetics and the idea of “bringing art into life”. Soviet people were supposed to decorate their new apartments in “good taste” and “modern style” by using not only newly designed furniture but also applied and graphic art. One of the common ways of introducing “art into everyday life” was hanging prints on the walls. Engravings and lithographies made specifically for home decoration rather than exhibitions were becoming increasingly popular from the end of the 1950s until the mid 1960s. They were printed in big numbers by several publishing houses and so-called ‘graphic combines’, the largest of which were located in Moscow and Leningrad. Some of the works have been referred to mostly in research related to particular artists and graphic art schools, without paying attention to the specific purposes of the prints. Moreover, the very idea of the decorative print intended to embellish Soviet apartments has never been addressed by art historians. Neither has it ever been examined in terms of social art history, with respect to the relations between the artists, the public, the authorities, and the commission conditions. In this paper, these factors are analyzed in connection with Moscow graphic artists and their production in 1955-1965. An analysis of their prints allows to draw conclusions about the tendencies in the field in 1955-1965, as well as about the public taste and its changes.