Among Friends: The Kukryniksy and the Comic Portrait Bust

• In Event: Make Laughter, Not War: Caricature, Emotion, and Politics in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Era

Abstract

This paper treats the genre of the friendly caricature (or sharzh) in the work of the art collective Kukryniksy (Mikhail Kuprianov, Porfirii Krylov, Nikolai Sokolov). It examines a series of porcelain busts they produced in this genre ca. 1935-38 in relation to 19th c. sculptural precedents by French realist and humorist Honoré Daumier, arguing that these works synthesize a realist tradition intended for consumption by Soviet and French audiences alike.

Author

• Samuel Johnson, Syracuse U