Elena Vasilievna Safonova (1902-1980) – Russian artist, book illustrator.
Graduated from the painting department of VKhUTEIN, where she studied in the studio of Kuzma Petrov-Vodkin. From 1923, she illustrated books, mainly literature for children and adolescents. In total, she illustrated about 25 books.
In 1928-1935, she collaborated with the magazines Chizh and Yozh. She became close to the OBERIU (Russian: ОБЭРИУ – Объединение реального искусства; English: the Union of Real Art or the Association for Real Art) , especially Alexander Vvedensky; she was briefly repressed in June 1932, but was soon returned from exile in Kursk. Soon after, she moved to Moscow.
Rehabilitated in 1958.
Elena Safonova presents the river as a symbol of human progress in her 1930 picture book. Its course carries the reader from villages and wooden bridges to steamships, railways, power stations, and apartment blocks, and finally flows into the open sea. Here, the river becomes a force of nature that […]
