In the Soviet Union of the 1920s, the most prominent avant-garde artists were eager children's book illustrators. Reaching a mass audience of unformed, malleable young people appealed to their commitment to an art manifesto based on the creation of a new kind of person for the revolutionary age. At the same time, the opportunity to work for good pay along with a low risk of censorship were practical attractions. The Constructivist artists drew considerable attention in the West for their brilliant creativity in using geometric designs, machine-age forms, and an architectural sense of space in their approach to the visual arts. Rejecting easel painting as a passé bourgeois preoccupation, they turned to designing and mythologizing objects of everyday use. In a major reassessment of their work, Evgeny Steiner forcefully demonstrates that the Constructivists were as committed to implementing Utopia—regardless of the human cost—as their establishment counterparts. Basing his work almost
