Changed my avatar as a result of a post in the Rafa thread from Farawayred who split the participants of the thread into Romantics, Realists and Socialist-Realists. I rather presumptiously decided I was a socialist-realist and needed an avatar to match.
Here it is:
The Miner, Boris Wladimirskij, 1929
In the interests of equality, I have a companion piece:
Female Worker
While perhaps most famous for blatant propaganda pieces like these:
Wladimirskij also sailed rather close to the Gulag when he produced this:
Black Ravens, 1930s
The Black Ravens are the black cars of the NKVD, a symbol of fear for and repression for the Soviet people and the way in which millions were snatched from their homes and driven away to a lifetime of hard labour. Just to hammer home the point the building in the background looks rather like a prison. It got past the censor and the black ravens never came home to roost for the artist.