The Art of Revolution – How Posters Swayed Minds, Forged Nations and Played their part in the Early 20th Century

From the factory wall, the corner of the schoolroom, barrack blocks, shop windows and the collective farms, the polical poster was every bit as challenging as the revolutionary projects that inspired it. Amid the foment of social change, art took service with the early Soviet state. Building upon tradiitonal themes from Russian folk culture, the lubki and legend, the Revolutionary poster soon came to mix the new brutal geometry of industrialisation with visions of agrarian utopias, fresh-faced farm girls and a world of plenty. The new art of photomontage met Constructivism head on. In an attempt to fashion the future, only to be eclipsed as the 1930s wore on by Socialist Realism; the celebration and idealisation of all that was best in human labour was as radical as the reality they hoped to shape. These were images created to move and empower, to make or break social systems and to transform the very foundations of our world.