Mikhail Mikailovich Solov'ev was born in Moscow. In 1930 he graduated from the advanced courses of the A.Kh.R.R. (Association of Artists of Revolutionary Russia). While he began his professional career as a painter, from 1944 on, he exclusively designed posters. He was made a member of the Union of Soviet Artists in 1933 and later, he led the poster section of the Moscow Union of Artists. During the 1930s, Solov'ev worked on posters and dioramas ...

The Leningrad Offset Printing Plant was located near Kronverkskaia and Mir Streets in Leningrad (St. Petersburg). Historically, the printer had roots in Imperial Russia as a large operation founded in 1881 by Theodore Kibbel (Fedor Fyodorovich Kibbel') until it was nationalized by the Soviets in 1917. After its initial nationalization, the printer's management (via a series of government-controlled printing trusts) and its name both changed over the decades until it ultimately became the Leningrad Offset Printing Plant ...

Iskusstvo was the Art Publishing House (A.K.A. Visual Arts Publishing) that was created in 1936 from Ogiz-Izogiz (State Art and Literature Publishing House). It disseminated books and journals dealing with graphic design and the fine arts, and it issued numerous posters. Since the Iskusstvo banner was part of the State Printing Works in Leningrad (St. Petersburg) and Moscow, its two main offices were located in those two cities.