Noted for his work as a poster designer and illustrator, Vladimir Lebedev studied under Titov, Rubo and Bernstein at the artists' studios in St. Petersburg. Lebedev gained his fame for the exceptional illustrations in the children's books of Samuil Marshak, his lifelong friend, and also contributed to such periodicals as Galchonok, Satirikon, Chizh and Ezh. In 1918 Lebedev joined the avant-garde art movement and began to work with seminal artists including Malevich, Puni, Mayakovsky, Cheremnykh, Punin and Tatlin. Having joined the "Four Arts" group in 1920, he later became director of children's book publisher Detgiz. Lebedev's witty sense of humor is fully seen in this series of comic drawings of contemporary Soviet society: factory workers, musicians, NEPmen, bureaucrats and drunkards. The drawings are uniform in format, and were undoubtedly intended as illustrations for a picture book. Stylistically, they are reminiscent of some of Lebedev's best known publications, such as his Russian Placards of 1923 and the light-hearted Circus of 1925. Provenance: from the estate of Dora Bernstein, the artist's widow