Greedy enemies are looking 1941

This darkly comedic print, made by the Kukryniksy collective in 1942, delivers a wartime message with ruthless wit. The cartoon-like figures, rendered in flat planes of colour, make this feel like a children’s book gone horribly wrong. The acid yellow and blue are jarring. There’s a real brutality to the marks – look at the spiky, claw-like feet of the central figure, or the way the bullets are reduced to simple red dashes. It’s like a woodcut, the pressure of the cut, the unforgiving nature of the medium all become part of the message. In the bottom panel, the scarecrow – a broken German soldier – wears a bucket marked ‘Kasha’, a kind of porridge. With a crow perched on its shoulder, it’s as if all that’s left is to feed the birds. It reminds me of Philip Guston’s late paintings, full of hooded figures, personal anxieties, and a similar kind of graphic, cartoonish dread. A reminder that even in the midst of horror, artists can find a way to make us see, and feel, the truth.