Viktor Pivovarov’s illustrations for a 1980 Soviet edition of Elfin Annie and Straw Hubert by the Czech Surrealist Vítězslav Nezval:
“Elfin Annie and Straw Hubert” is my guess/translation of the Czech title Anička skřítek a Slaměný Hubert and the Russian title Анечка-Невеличка и Соломенный Губерт.
From what I can glean from the internets (nothing in English), this 342-page book has been very popular in Eastern Europe since its first edition, which was illustrated by none other than Jiri Trnka. It also appears to have been adapted for stage and (TV?) screen.
Four books by Nezval (1900 – 58) have appeared in English over the past few years: Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (made into an infamous 1970 movie), Edition 69, Antilyrik and Other Poems, and Prague with Fingers of Rain. It’s somewhat surprising that the author of Valerie penned a popular kids’ book.
I covered Pivovarov twice before, though this is the first of his books I managed to get my hands on.
From wikipedia: “ Viktor Pivovarov, along with Ilya Kabakov and Erik Bulatov, was one of the leading artists of the Moscow Conceptualist artistic movement of the 1960s and 1970s… Pivovarov was also a prolific illustrator of children’s books, with over 50 books to his credit. He moved from Moscow to Prague in 1982, and continues to live there to date.”
Part of my collection of Soviet-era children’s books:
—Mummy was a robot, daddy was a small nonstick kitchen utensil
—Dedicated to you but you weren’t glistening
—Klop (The Bedbug)
—Smoking crack in the cosmic egg
—Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others
