Mikhail Tarkhanov Photograph and Artwork Collection, 1908-1949

Mikhail Mikhailovich Tarkhanov (1888-1962) was a Russian and Soviet avant-garde artist who employed various media during his career. He graduated from the Stroganov Moscow State University of Arts and Industry in 1915, but shortly after was called to the Russian army from 1916 to 1919 as a topographer and draftsman. He later entered the VKhUTEMAS, the famous Russian school of avant-garde art, in 1921.

Tarkhanov describes the printing technique he’s said to have pioneered as a water-based monotype, or an aquatype. In this style of printmaking, the image is created from oil colors on water rather than the typical hard surface.

Tarkhanov became widely known for his graphic art and children’s book designs, and had his works exhibited in the 1920s and early 1930s. Around this time, he also began experimenting with paint and photography. His work with endpaper designs shows an aesthetic link to his photograms and photographs as they both explore ideas of repetition and pattern. In 1929, Tarkhanov held a solo exhibit which may have had both mediums displayed side by side. In that same year, Tarkhanov published a monograph on the subject of endpapers. See: Forza︠ts︡y / Михаил Тарханов.; Forza︠ts︡y by Mikhail Mikhaĭlovich Tarkhanov (McCormick Library or Special Collections ; Graphic Arts T187f).

From 1932 to well after Tarkhanov’s 1962 death, the exhibition of abstract art was banned in the Soviet Union. Despite this, Tarkhanov continued his pursuit in abstract work in secret, and thus much of his abstract work has remained unseen up to the present day.