Boris Naumovich Belopol'skii was a multi-talented artist. While his chief concentration was in graphic art, Belopol'skii was also known as a painter and a monumentalist. A 1928 graduate of the Kharkov Art Institute, he lived in Kharkov until 1941 whereupon he moved to Moscow. During the 1930s the artist began designing posters. His artistic style incorporated photomontage and illustrative realism. Belopol’skii designed posters for Iskusstvo (Art) Publishing House whereby he generated a significant number of titles co...

The 1st Exemplary Typography Workshop was named in honor of Andrei Alexandrovich Zhdanov (1896-1948), a Soviet military leader and a senior member of the Politburo who died in 1948. Reportedly, Andrei Zhdanov controlled the atomic espionage division of the USSR and he was Josef Stalin's closest confidant. Historically, the 1st Exemplary Typography Workshop began as the Sharapov-Sytin Partnerhip, a printing workshop formed before the Russian Revolution. Ivan Dmitrievich Sytin (1851-1934) was the son of a peasant. ...

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.