#BK1982
[1920-1930s]
25x36 cm. Unpublished series of original drawings, likely postcard-designs, created by Ukrainian American artist Vladimir Kadulin (1884-1957), after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. Contemporary cloth album.
Kadulin was one of the most prominent and productive representatives of the Kyiv caricature school that emerged after the revolution of 1905. Certain liberties concerning the freedom of speech and media were granted by the Tsar, and as a result a myriad of satirical periodicals were created in the first years following the revolution. A lot of them were short-lived and were swiftly shut down by the government, however the wave was able to produce a number of bright young artists that became recognizable by their style and genre. One of them, based in Kyiv, was Vladimir Kadulin. He was born in Kamenets-Podolsky (Ukraine) and studied in Moscow in the local School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, then in Kyiv, graduating in 1905. Starting that year, he was able to contribute sketches and caricatures to newspapers such as ‘Kiyevskaya zhizn'’, ‘Kiyevskaya zarya’, ‘Kiyevskaya rech'’, ‘Kiyevskaya iskra’, also some of the shortlived satirical periodicals like ‘Zritel’ and ‘Gvozd’.
He became most popular in the pre-revolutionary Russian Empire as the author of the series of postcards, printed by the publishing house ‘Rassvet’, depicting the classical ‘types’ of the Russian empire – the types of students, teachers and the city dwellers.
After the revolution of 1917 Kadulin moved to Istanbul and later to New York, where he spent most of his remaining years. This particular suite of illustrations could have been created soon after the revolution, before artists moved to the States (the spelling of his name in the album is ‘C.Doulin’ in French, not English). The caricatures are based on the main heroes of the Bolshevik revolution, according to the artist. They include the images, signed as ‘Communist’, ‘Agitator’, ‘The candidate to judicial office’ (with broken shackles), ‘Commissar’, ‘The commander of the Navy’ (likely depicting one of the mariners, during the looting of Zimniy palace), ‘Nurse’, antisemitic ‘The trade mission representative’, ‘Red Army soldier in full armor’, ‘Station commandant’, ‘Chairman of the revolutionary tribunal’ and ‘Demonstrators’. The images are sarcastic and filled with a bouquet of feelings that was shared by the first wave of Russian émigrés towards the new regime. The caricatures are likely based on Kadulin’s own account of revolution of 1917 in Kyiv, where he has witnessed it before he had to leave the country forever.
