Vera Ermolayeva

"Vitebsk Mona Lisa" Vera Ermolayeva came from a family of noble narodniks, was well-versed in European art, studied in M. Bernshtein's studio and participated in Russian Dada - the circle "Bloodless Murder". She became the right hand of K. Malevich in UNOVIS, an energetic activist of GINKhuk and a theorist of plastic realism. Despite suffering from a severe ailment (Vera Mikhailovna walked with a cane her entire life), she possessed rare energy and zest for life, attracting and organizing youth, working a lot and easily. These qualities allowed her in recent years to become an important artist of Lebedev's Detgiz, designing dozens of books - including texts by her friends from the Oberiuts. Ermolayeva's path was "halted in motion" - along with the convicted and perished artist in Karlag in 1937, her era also disappeared. But while the easel heritage of the avant-garde might have disappeared or lay in folders for decades, the books live a dispersed life of their editions. They are also fragile - small lithographed sheets on a paperclip - and after almost a hundred years, when gathered together, they look like a picturesque panorama of a great epoch. This publication includes an essay on the work of Vera Ermolayeva by art historian Antonina Zainchkowskaya, a comprehensive collection of documents and texts by the artist, and a small catalog of her book graphics.