The return of satire

Sometimes, as a bookseller, you get the chance to buy back a book you have sold before. This happened to me just recently, and here is the book, a wonderful collection of caricatures of leading lights in contemporary Russian theatre, ballet, and opera, from 1916. I sold this copy in 2015 and have not seen another since.

The artist is Nikolai Remizov (1887–1975), better known by his pseudonym ‘Re-Mi’, who, from 1908 onwards, was one of the main artists working for the journals Satirikon and Novyi Satirikon (which published this book), poking fun at those involved in the arts.  He emigrated after the Revolution, settling first in Paris, then America, where he later worked in Hollywood.