Vera Ermolaeva, Dve sobaki [Two Dogs], 1930

Vera Ermolaeva (1893-1937) was an illustrator and painter. In 1918 she founded Segodnia [Today] collective in Petrograd; the first Soviet
children’s book publisher. She illustrated children’s books throughout the 1920s and 30s for Detgiz, The State Children’s Publishing House in Russia.

This book is one of a series of 12 fables by Ivan Krylov illustrated by Ermolaeva. Two dogs with the same owner discuss their different lives living indoors and out in the yard. It was published in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), Russia at a time when children’s books became a mass media phenomenon. Over a ten-year period, almost 10,000 titles were published in several editions of up to 200,000. Many of these books took experimental approaches to storytelling, design and layout.