Skip to Content

The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

The Utopian Avant-Garde: Soviet Film Posters of the 1920s

Feb 23 – Aug 21, 2022
119 W 23rd St, New York, NY 10011, United States

In 1917, the Bolsheviks overthrew Tsar Nicholas II, forcing his abdication. Shortly afterward, the Imperial family was taken hostage and murdered, and a nervous new freedom filled the streets. Civil war took hold, however, and in 1922 Russia became communist. In the push to build an egalitarian Soviet culture, cinema was a powerful form of propaganda. Buildings were papered with dynamic film posters, created by artists and meant to draw people into movie theaters. This golden age of Soviet graphic design, a time that saw Alexander Rodchenko, the Stenberg brothers, and Semyon Semyonov rising to prominence, is the subject of “The Utopian Avant-Garde.” —Elena Clavarino

Vladimir Stenberg & Georgii Stenberg,, “Six Girls Seeking Shelter,” 1928. The Ralph DeLuca Collection, courtesy of Poster House.