Landscape near the "Pil-tower" 1923

Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva made this woodcut print, Landscape near the “Pil-tower”, sometime in the first half of the 20th century. The cultural context of the image is suggestive. Before the Russian Revolution of 1917, artists often made prints and paintings of the estates owned by the aristocracy. After the revolution, these estates were often turned into parks for everyone to enjoy. This print’s image of a small tower next to a formal garden reflects this history. The artist, a woman who came of age before the revolution, was later celebrated for her work in service of the Soviet state, but in some ways she was also a formalist, an artist interested in the aesthetic qualities of the image, its composition, and its play of light and shadow. These kinds of questions about art and its relationship to institutions can be answered by consulting historical archives and collections of letters, as well as the history of printmaking as a medium.